Case: J
by hahalongboy
Summary: At the worst moments, you could have bad luck. At the moments you don't need it, you can get good luck. Sometimes you may think your luck was good or bad until you realized later it was the opposite. At the beginning of the game, bad luck struck in the form of someone attacking another person. My life never was the same. OC-centric. Rated T for a lot of bad language and innuendos.
1. Preliminary Observations

Running, feet pounding on the pavement, heavy breathing. The streets were empty as I ran past the soulless vendors that lined the roads. Behind me I heard screaming. I couldn't think of anything over my breathing. I could feel the chill of the night seep into me, almost fooling me into thinking I wasn't inside a video game.

I wasn't even sure for how long I'd been running. If I was asked where I was going the next day I wouldn't be able to answer. All I cared about was finding the least populated area in the town and sitting there until the panic died down, both mine and the crowd's. I wasn't sure how long it'd take but I was willing to wait it out anywhere.

But no matter where I looked, there were some kinds of humans occupying every single corner of the city. Somehow some actual players made it further than me in the short span of time after the announcement, though I did stall for a few seconds before running. Some were curled up into balls in the oddest of places, others despondently looked at the ground, as if it were going to provide an answer. The most memorable one of them all was a man whose age showed in his wrinkles and slightly hunched posture who was laughing his head off in the middle of the street. As I ran by he stopped and glared at me, as if I ran in and ruined the big joke.

The streets and people blurred together, until I reached the area that I least wanted to see: an exit from the city. Panicking I may have been, I still had enough of my wits to realize that riding out the fear I felt outside a safe area wasn't the smartest of plans. However, at this point I could hear the city tearing itself apart behind me. Cries of despair, others running for whatever reason, and smashing painted a city in turmoil, one that I definitely wanted no part in.

With these thoughts in mind, I came to a dead stop in front of the gate and weighed my options. I definitely wasn't a beta tester but I sure as hell wasn't a noob. I took to the mechanics of the game well enough to kill a few boars solo, one of the best moments of my life by the way. If trouble really came, I was confident in my ability to defend myself. On the other hand, there's a very real possibility that I could fall asleep out there and be one of the first deaths in the game. Briefly I wondered how Kayaba would feel if he saw that a player died because he slept outside of the city walls.

Though I deliberated for less than a few seconds, a scream tore through the air that made me jump in place. Feeling a wave of dread come across me, I realized that the scream came outside of the walls. Thoughts of another person who had the same idiotic idea as I did flitted across my mind. That person might've had the nerves get to them and is getting overwhelmed by boars. 'Death game' kept ringing out in my mind. If they died here they wouldn't see the real world again. I could've stopped their death and I didn't move my hand. Death game, death game, death game.

Before I could tell myself it was a stupid idea, my feet were moving. I ran outside of the gate and into the rolling hills of floor one. Without regards to my surroundings, I bolted in the general direction of where the scream was. Praying that I took the correct direction, a desperate 'Help!' to my right made me change my course and continue running. In the back of my mind, I was impressed that I was feeling the same exertion that I usually did when running in real life. The possibilities of technology never cease to amaze me, even when I was trapped in a death game and saving somebody's life.

After running over a hill, I was treated to a sight that made me stop dead in my tracks. On the floor was a boy about my age, scruffy hair, and had a slightly athletic build. His face showed pure terror and I noted that his sword was laying on the ground behind him. I could only notice two things about the man standing above him: his green ange cursor and raised sword. I briefly wondered of how a muscular guy lost to a fairly scrawny fellow before I remembered this was in a game.

My body moved faster than my brain. I sprinted down the hill and towards the two figures. The boy noticed me as I ran down, but his expression of terror remained. As the figure's sword glowed, my own followed suit.

Before the figure could follow through, my sword struck through his midsection. I slightly cleaved into him and he was knocked down, sputtering the entire way. My breathing eased up as his sword lost its glow, falling out of his hand and landing on the grass below. In a moment that could only be described as a brain fart, I put my sword in its sheath and turned my gaze to the boy on the ground.

A quick glance over made me realize how awful the brain is at processing things at moments of high stress. The boy wasn't muscular, rather he was slightly pudgy. His hair was brown and was indeed scruffy. His chin had a few hairs poking out, looking as a boy who hasn't grown a beard yet rather than one that shaves. His larger brown eyes and general facial features showed that he wasn't a native to the country, his face looking more fitting for an American than anything.

As I was studying his face, the look of terror never left. It intensified if anything, though that could be attributed to the fact that I could get a good look at it now. A shattering sound made us both jump as our heads snapped to the last particles disappearing in the air, just like from the boars that I killed earlier.

I barely registered the boy's words from right next to me. "You killed him."

I killed him. I killed him. It wouldn't leave my mind. Everything was so bizarre now. It was so strange. He died just like any NPC or enemy in the game would. Particles in the air. Did I get XP for killing him? What drops did I get? That was a person who had hopes and dreams and perhaps friends and family in the real world and I had to keep reminding myself of that because he died just like a program. If the entire thing is real. Maybe he just got a scare when he woke up on the bed. Is he laughing with his family right now? No, no he isn't because I killed him. His mom is crying over his bed. That was me, I did it.

By the time I came back to the real world, I was alone. Kicking myself into gear, I was about to run back into the city before the boy's terrified look struck through me again. I realized something. My cursor was orange now, wasn't it? The color of killers, criminals.

Panic coursing through me again, I let my body go as my brain sorted itself out. I ran into the rolling hills of floor one,

**AN: **The plan originally was to prewrite the entire story and then release it piece by piece. As I got past the halfway point though, I was confronted with multiple problems that make that less than ideal. The biggest problem is that I don't have consistent beta readers, and the one that I do have hasn't read too much outside of this. Because of this, I'm unsure whether the story is heading in the right direction, isn't riddled with grammar and spelling errors, and if it's even that enjoyable. The biggest problem that stems from this is that I don't know if the story is 'flowing' correctly. I don't know if the foreshadowing (little that there is) and time skips that are present make enough sense that the reader's head isn't spinning.

The new game plan is this: the first few chapters will be published at once. From then on it'll be periodic. This way if there's any early mistakes in the story, I can fix them and change the writing later or keep it in mind for later chapters as I'm writing the rest.

Bottom Line: I'll be keeping on top (as best as to my ability anyways) of the reviews for any sort of criticism to the story. Is it riddled with errors? Does it make no sense (some of that may be on purpose admittedly)? Are there errors with the lore (I want to keep compliant in that everything mentioned in the anime/manga is the same, but everything outside of that is fair game to my own ideas)? If so, flame me in the reviews or PM me. Again, I'll keep on top of them to the best of my ability.

And so ends chapter 1.


	2. Case: Coco

Life was tough since I decided to go hard mode in a game that held my life in its hands. Due to paranoia, I first ran as far as I could. Sleeping was tough, I had to find somewhere that was both safe from the mobs and hidden from players. Hunger was also something that the game artificially created (to my great amusement), forcing me to hunt down the wandering boars and hoping for a drop of food. The raw meat tasted awful (increasing my amusement even more) but it was something. As I ran further and further from civilization, I came across a dire problem: my level.

Being cut off from society not only hurt in the social way but in the practical way as well. Not having a reliable method to secure healing items bites, and the want to escape from other players was becoming a problem. I wanted to reach the farthest areas from people as possible so that I didn't have to deal with the orange cursor stigma but the increased levels and number of enemies the further I got became a problem by the third day of my exile. Walking back to the boar infested areas was easy enough but my own paranoia of being attacked by other players who would undoubtedly be grinding in those areas made me indecisive. Grinding with slightly higher level enemies like wolves would've been fine, if it wasn't for the fact that I had to avoid getting hit at all. Getting hit would make me either have to stop grinding for the day or risk attacking more, something that I wouldn't dare try when my life was on the line. As macabre as it sounds, I was regretting not seeing if the man's body had any healing items on him.

The man's death. Despite the entire situation that happened, I found that I did not regret killing him. Well, I regretted it in that I wished that he didn't die, but I would've done it again if given the chance. The fact that he died was something that haunted my dreams since then. Was he attacked by a boar beforehand? Did the kid on the ground manage to land a strike on him? All of those thoughts made me restless, at times of sleep, leading to sleepless nights out on the fields. On the bright side, on one of the nights a boar wandered into my sleeping area, leading to its unfortunate demise and letting me avoid a sneak attack.

Guilt eating up at me or not, that did not change the scenario I was faced with. Being out on the fields alone with a limited amount of healing items bites, and I found that every scrap that I went into leads to at least one hit being snuck in by the enemy. After six days of my exile, I leveled up once, bringing me up to an impressive level two.

On the seventh day, marking the first week we've entered, I was getting desperate, so desperate that I decided on exploring my current surroundings. I decided that heading to the mountains I saw in the distance was a better choice than any, with all the other choices basically being choose a random path and go for it. The mountains would both be hopefully secluded and give me a good short term goal to keep my mind off of how horrible life is at the moment. Exploring the surroundings meant using up a day's worth of meat, possibly getting into a fight, and halting my progress. But there was no way that I could go on the way I was. Either I would use up all my healing items and be stranded in the wilderness or bite off more than I could chew and die a sad, lonely death. If I were to find any kind of item, weapon, armor, then I'd have a fighting chance of living another week.

Waking up to the faux-sun, I picked myself off the grass and looked towards the horizon. The mountains were much more visible than days before, but I wasn't within a days walking distance yet. Despite being on foot for a week, progress was difficult when you were avoiding as many fights as possible. When my health was half, I didn't dare to get into any more fights unless cornered, and even then I would try and run away. However, there was a small voice in the back of my mind telling me the unfortunate truth that I didn't want to hear: I suck. At the moment I take five hits from a boar to bring my health to about half. In two fights I usually get hit five times. Though I didn't have anybody to compare myself to, there was a niggling feeling that my own lack of skill is holding me back from survival.

Shaking all the thoughts out of my head led to me remembering the man's death and how I never saw his face, so I brought back the thoughts of my own suckage, both depressing and angering myself. Picking a direction was easy, as all I had to do was move neither towards nor away from the mountains. Picking my right, which was east, I set off. The walk was calming, letting me see the detail put into each blade of grass and leaf floating in the air. The game was truly picturesque, and it would've surely been one of my favorites of all time if it wasn't a death game and had more weapon variety. Though the shops probably don't represent the endgame, the beta tester's experiences didn't boost my confidence in the later game weapons.

After killing two boars that stumbled into me (and getting hit once in the progress) I realized that after two hours of walking all that I'd found were new hills that I hadn't tread before. I believe so at least, it's hard to distinguish them when all of them are green and grassy. I kicked one of the hills, sending a little bit of virtual dirt flying in the process. The physics engine letting the dirt clumps be broken apart into individual pieces and landing just as dirt would improved my mood a little, but not enough for me to stop being discouraged.

What the hell was I even looking for? A dungeon? There's no telling how dangerous it was, and if it was connected to a quest rather than having loot inside, I was screwed. In my mind, meeting a player would lead to them running away as far as their two feet could take them the second they saw me. As far as I knew, there was no mob just wandering around that dropped anything that'd help me. Or at least I thought so. I was excited for the game but not enough to read every single fact posted by a beta tester.

I kicked the ground again to see the dirt clumps fly into the air. I smiled. Well, it wasn't so bad. I still had a few healing gems. I had the sense to buy both a sword and armor with the money I had before the shitshow, little in amount. And best of all, I haven't run into anybody yet.

Taking a glance around my surroundings to make sure I didn't jinx myself, I breathed out a sigh of relief and continued walking. Sulking wouldn't do anything other than waste time. In the back of my head I realized that I really just could sit on my ass somewhere and wait for the game to be finished. Food and water weren't truly required (I think). The game's advanced, but not advanced enough to make me actually starve to death. Well, at least I thought so. I couldn't participate in any raids, having a giant glowing orange marker over my head screaming, "Watch your backs for this one!" Therefore, I had no use for leveling up other than gaining the ability to defend myself against other players, a thought that put a sour look on my face.

These idle thoughts were quickly discarded though. There's no telling how long we were going to be in the game and I wasn't looking to twiddle my thumbs the entire time as the days turned into months. At least with exploring the first floor, I had something to do. I recall my father saying that doing things made you live longer. That applied to living in a death game, right?

After another hour of walking and a change in directions my built of motivation started to dissipate. My legs were sore, which was awesome in a game perspective, but not in a practical perspective. My strides weren't as long and kicking up dirt didn't amuse me as much as earlier. My thoughts turned to the less practical lest they turned to the past. I realized that I've only referred to SAO as a death game so far. While the phrase is true, there's got to be another term for it. Technically. SAO has breached new boundaries putting the player's life on the line as they play. Does this mean that Kayaba has created a new genre of games, or that this is an innovative new mechanic? I recall a good time ago before my move one of my more eccentric friends was a film fanatic, so much that he insisted on watching foreign films with subtitles rather than a voiceover. One of his favorites that he loved to show people was an American one called, "Saw". Perhaps this new genre/mechanic could be referred to as a Saw-like. Sawgame? Maybe just Saw Out of the three terms, Saw-like was definitely my favorite. Henceforth, I referred to SAO as a Saw-like.

Determining the genre of SAO was but a minor distraction in the slog that I called "exploring". During my mental tirade, a singular boar managed to get the jump on my and landed a hit before I could slice his dumb face off. From then on I tried to keep my mind focused on the surroundings. If a boar could slip past me undetected, then I'm sure I could've missed some hidden treasure or whatever.

Four hours passed and all that I could say I've found was disappointment. My determination to be focused faded pretty quickly and so my mind wandered back onto the impact SAO will have on the gaming world. It's one of the only non-depressing things that I could think of, a thought that brought me even more depression. Sadness seems to have taken root into my recent life, not that I thought I was special in that matter. Even if my cursor wasn't orange, I wouldn't have stuck around the very long anyway. Despite not being there since the first night, I had a feeling the situation hasn't gotten any better. I probably would've grinded the boars in happy safety being next to a populated area with healing items.

As I made dumb noises with my mouth to entertain myself, my foot kicked a hard object. Looking down, I saw the very edge of a brown object. Letting hope soar in my heart, I got on my knees and took a closer look.

"That only took five hours," I grumbled as my hands touched the tip of the object.

A closer inspection told me nothing about the object. There was only a very small corner sticking out of the ground, something that I would've passed by if it wasn't for my foot coincidentally tapping it. Rubbing my hands in glee, I bent down and went to town on the dirt around it.

An hour's worth of digging revealed my efforts. Pulling the object out of the ground, I let out a sigh of satisfaction and thanked whatever God was out there for my luck. I wondered if Kayaba could be considered a god with how he's made a world and all of us his subjects before shaking my head.

In front of me was a very aged chest. However, this wasn't the kind of chests you would see in a game. This one was, well, very shitty. The metal lock was rusted enough to where it's now useless and the whole thing is littered with holes. It wasn't a big thing, with it not even reaching up to my shins (though that could be due to my own height). On the front, there were words scratched out on it. I squinted to see the small letters, taking the box in my hands.

"Time… capsule?"

Damn it.

The hope that built up into my heart came crashing down, before coming back up again. Maybe an adult made this for his old self! Maybe that person was a soldier! Maybe a rich kid made it and stuffed it full of his fortune!

Flinging open the chest quelled my hope once again. Facing up was a painting of a kid, one that I guessed was about ten. I didn't even bother taking in the details of the painting, rather grabbing it and putting it in my inventory. Quest item it may be, it's not like I have a weight limit. I think.

Looking at the bare bottom of the chest, I jumped in surprise. For some reason I didn't think that something could be at the bottom. Laying on the floor was a little bit of money, a teleport crystal thing, and five healing crystals.

Not thinking of how illogical it is to keep crystals in a time capsule, I snatched the items greedily and stuffed them in my inventory. Five crystals for five hours? That was worth it. Or was it six hours? Who cares! I now had supplies to spare, kind of. I wasn't about to enter the forest, in fear of the mobs that might reside there. Boars however, I was ready to fight all day. Surviving seemed more and more likely.

Something smashing into my back brought me back down. Stumbling back to my feet, I looked around and realized that five boars had surrounded me. As I was thinking they were connected to the chest somehow, another boar slammed into me. Groaning, I quickly used a crystal to top my health off and unsheathed my sword. Spinning on my heel, my sword glowed and cut through the boar that attacked me. During my attack, another boar rammed into my leg, sending me off balance.

Slowly realizing that I was in an actual fight and not a turn based battle, I used my superior human legs and ran past the boars. Hearing the hooves behind me, I (tried to) double my speed. After what couldn't of been more than five minutes, the boars were still keeping pace with me. I threw my head backwards and sure enough, all five of the boars were still chasing after me.

I bit my lip. There really wasn't any choice but to stop and fight them. I briefly gathered everything that I knew about fighting. Flitting through the useless trivia, I remembered something vaguely important: high elevation is good. I don't know why, but those who are uphill have the advantage in battles. Without knowing exactly why being higher is better, I looked at my surroundings. Just like the rest of the first floor, hills dotted the landscape. Choosing the closest one to my left, I ran as hard as my simulated legs would take me.

Reaching the peak of the hill, I swung my sword horizontally, turning my entire body around. I missed the boar by swinging above him. Before I could rebalance myself, the boar slammed itself into me so hard that I was flung backwards. Realizing that my choice in hills was poor, I rolled backwards until I came to a stop on the ground. Looking around revealed that I was in a small valley sort of area, with hills completely surrounding me. There were four more boars here, looking confused at me. The most notable aspect however, was a girl that was right above me, looking down.

I blinked. She blinked. I checked her health. It was in the red. I silently cheered that I wasn't the only person getting their ass kicked by boars.

I bounced upwards just in time for the boars that were chasing me to arrive. As a welcome gift, I slashed downwards on the one that I hit earlier, killing him. Now there were 'only' eight boars surrounding us. Waving my sword around like it was a deterrent, I crushed a crystal for myself and then used another on the girl next to me.

I made the first move. Swinging downwards, I clipped another boar's head and killed it. In retaliation, two of its friends rammed into my legs, stumbling me. The girl, wielding an axe, dashed forward and attacked. I noted with amusement that she was so short that she didn't need to swing down like I do.

As if it was a theme for today, I was taken out of my thoughts when a boar bit my leg. Alarmed, I whacked it without activating a sword art, chipping away its health with each strike. In a moment that I later realized was brilliant programming, the boars stopped battling and looked at me confused. In a fit of embarrassment I activated a sword art and sliced through the boar, cutting myself in the process. I took another crystal and refocused on the battle. While the boars were distracted by my battle prowess, the girl was able to kill two of them. I wasn't an expert in boar's facial expressions, but if I had to bet, I would say that they weren't looking too confident. Running forwards with reckless abandon only led to me being smashed into with a move that was so telegraphed the boars once again looked at me incredulously. The girl jumped at the opportunity I gave her and killed another boar. A feeling of inadequacy struck through me, one that I quashed by standing up and slamming the sword into the boar.

The last boar's head flew between the two of us, before he made his decision. Turning tail, the boar tried to run away only to be sliced in half by me.

I sheathed my sword and cracked my virtual back, mulling over the incredulity of that statement. I turned to my right and broke my chain of thoughts before they could start, taking in the girl that I ran into.

She was short, and not 'short because I'm tall'. Rather, this girl looked like the type that has to look under the wheel while driving. Her black, straight hair was in a bob cut(I find it hard to believe that was ever in style) and her brown eyes were looking inquisitively at me. Really, everything about her was small: her eyes, her nose, if I didn't know about the mirror at the beginning, I'd assume that she created this character.

I saw her eyes glance to the top of my head. Her acting skills were commendable, as there was no reaction to my orange cursor. We stood like that for a while, looking at each other. After a few seconds, I started feeling uncomfortable for multiple reasons. To start, we were staring at each other without saying a single thing for more than ten seconds. My orange cursor added to the shame factor, making me feel like she was scrutinizing me rather than anything else. Not that I like being looked at by a cute girl or anything, but that thought led me on another tangent. What if she's small because she's actually eight or something? Was I a pedophile? Is being a pedophile worse than a murderer? Of course it was, because I'm a pedophiliac murderer!

A poke on my arm took me back to reality. Another poke sent a twinge of annoyance. Focusing my attention at the girl, I realized that the pokes were coming from the axe that she held. I cursed in my head. Despite knowing that I was 'on the run' so to speak, I sheathed my sword for the first human that I met. I thought about the fact that I was already contemplating fighting another human before I banished that thought from my mind. I had more pressing things to pay attention to.

After another staring match, she broke the silence in quiet voice that fit the girl a little too well.

"I'm out of healing crystals, can you lend me one?"

I hesitated at her request but complied in the end. Taking out a crystal, I crushed it and saw her health get topped off again. Sometime in the battle when I wasn't paying attention she was hit enough to go back into the red.

After another period of silence she nodded. "Why are you orange?"

Ah, the touchy subjects first. "I'd rather not talk about it."

With the third period of silence, I assumed that she was either quiet or thought very long about what she was going to say. I considered asking about her age before deciding against it. That was probably the most creepy thing I could say in this scenario. Instead, I opted to say the practical thing.

"Why are you out here?" I asked, glancing at her axe that was still in her hand.

Fourth, or could this still be considered the third? "Beta testers said good drops in this area."

This newfound knowledge disturbed me. Not only did I not know where players were going to frequent now, more importantly I didn't know the optimal areas to grind at. Not that I would go to these places since there would definitely be other players there. But with this lack of knowledge of the game, I couldn't be sure of where was safe to roam. For all I know, the mountains could be a great grinding area and will be flooded with people.

"Hey," Another tap on my arm.

I looked back at her, tapping at me with the axe which was, for the record, still out. I tilted my head at her. "What?"

"Accept," she said, opening up her menu.

I was confused, until a notification sound alerted me. Opening up my menu, it told me that someone named 'Coco' wanted to friend me.

Turning my gaze back to her, I eloquently asked her, "Why?"

"You gave me a healing crystal," I can't say that's a good metric for trusting an orange player, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "I can give you information from the beta testers."

And that was when my life started to look up.


	3. Case: Aleph

Coco's saved my ass so many times that I didn't bother counting. With her help, I was able to discern player-less areas in the mountains. Trading materials and money with Coco let her go back into town and bring me back healing crystals. Healing crystals let me finally grind consistently without worrying about dying. A good thing too, as the fight with Coco used up all of the healing crystals that I gathered that day.

However, the supply of crystals came at a cost. The main reason that Coco could consistently bring me healing crystals was because she was grinding in the same area that I walked into. The fact that it wasn't an area recommended for grinding by the beta testers(something that contradicted her first words on why she was out there) was something that I didn't bring up. Her business is her own, I believe. This of course, meant that I could no longer progress towards the mountains, something I was fine with. Grinding near Coco let me raise my level enough to face the monsters who reside up there, as according to the information they're a slightly higher level than the standard boars down in the plains. For a while, I was content with grinding the days away.

The day that I've been dreading came sooner than I thought. As I was climbing out of a niche in the hill, a place that I've been using to sleep for the past week, I heard voices that were certainly not Coco's. Climbing to the top of the hill, I peered over the edge. Just as I was afraid of, there was a group of four people walking together, eyeing a group of boars nearby. Deaf to my protests, they started attacking the boars. After killing them, they waited for another pack to wander back.

I cursed as I laid back on the hill. In the week of nonstop grinding with Coco my level has raised to five, something that I'm quite proud of. During the time we both learned how to fight better together, now both of us being able to take two boars without being hit, notwithstanding the fact that now we can both two hit the boars with bad equipment. However, I was still a low level, considering the fact that I'm a solo player. From what the beta testers say, wolves aren't pushovers in a group, and can be deadly even to high level solo players. The forest that I was next to is apparently teeming with the things, making me apprehensive to continue.

But what choice did I have? These players are just the start. This is a day walk max, if you wanted to get here quickly. The only reason I took so long was because I stopped whenever my health got too low. The areas around the starting town, whatever the name of it will start filling up as people get more courage to get out there and grind. Great for us ending the game, not great for me who's trying to stay away from people.

In the end, I made my decision. Opening my menu and clicking on Coco, I opened up my DMs with her and typed.

J: People in our grinding spot, going to move to mountains now.

I had to only wait a few seconds before her response came.

Coco: Wait in your hiding spot, I'm coming with crystals. I will be there in about 30.

Her quiet demeanor is just a first impression, I realized. In the days that came she talked more and more with me before we could finally start actual full conversations. I foolishly started a conversation over text one time while it was night and she was able to type a paragraph before I got done with a sentence. In proper grammar too!

I sent an affirmation before climbing back down to my hole. Though we were only acquainted together for a week, I was already used to my little grassy, dirt hole. It was warm enough and comfy. Since this isn't real life, I worried less about bugs crawling on me while I slept. The stay was nice, and I was sad to see it go.

Just as she said, thirty minutes later she walked down the mountain and crouched into my abode. Without a glance at her menu, she initiated a trade with me, another thing that I had to get used to with her. Her hand-eye coordination was phenomenal, enough that I felt pangs of jealousy whenever she navigated through any kind of menu. With fingers like hers, I could've been twice as good at any of the games I played before coming here.

Accepting the trade of twenty whopping crystals, I was startled out of pressing accept as she gave me a hug. "Don't go killing yourself like an idiot, okay?"

Coming out of my state of shock, I returned it. "Got it."

Words of a smooth criminal.

We parted and I hit accept. While I did want to stay and talk for awhile as talking with her is enjoyable, the fact that there were people in less than a miles distance of us put me on edge. Morality aside, the last thing I wanted to do was fight against a group of intelligent players who could easily surround and pin me. The faster that I was in the mountains the calmer I would be.

She nodded and left my bungalow. I wasn't too worried that our parting conversation was only two sentences as I knew she'd probably open up a chat and type my eyes off later in the day. Double checking my inventory, I determined that everything was in order. Before the group could move closer and make a hasty escape impossible, I took off to the north, where the mountains were. The big problem was that there's a forest infested with higher level mobs surrounding the mountain. Wolves are the most common mob but there's a few others that were made for the sole factor of keeping players on their toes. One of the beta tester's 'favorites' was a monster that mimics a tree and would slap you with its branches.

The forest was an easily solved problem though. In the first floor, to let new players get acclimated, there's much less monster spawning in areas that aren't significant to a quest. Whether this is still true or not is a constant debate between beta testers, but I'm willing to believe them after what happened with the chest incident. Banking on this fact, I'll be avoiding the areas that they marked as quest relevant and make a beeline to the mountains. There are grinding spots and a few shops that even orange players can use, letting me move freely around the mountains no sweat. Of course, this is assuming I live through the forest.

I shook my head to clear errant thoughts. Admittedly, I've only been surviving so far due to dumb luck. Coco would never say it to my face but I'm bad. Real bad. But during the time we grinded, I've gotten good enough to hold my own but not nearly good enough to deal with any group of enemies. With the amount of healing crystals I have and my quick pace, the trip should only take a day. Huge emphasis on should.

As I stood before the trees, I took a deep breath before striding in. This is the only obstacle I have before I'm home free. Sure, the mountains will eventually be filled with players also but by the time the low level grinders leak into there, I'll be long gone. Hopefully at that point to the second floor, though I'm not too certain on that.

The gloom of the forest floor reflected my mood. Despite there being a few hundred or something beta testers the boss for this floor still hasn't been found yet. It's been two weeks? three? Since the game started and people still haven't even found the boss. If one hundred floors take this long, then we'd be out by a number of weeks so long that I don't want to do the math for it. The thought disturbed me so much that I thought about home.

What was Dad doing? We didn't have the best father and son relationship, with us mostly staying out of each other's way, but he wouldn't just leave me in my room for that long without coming out. Since I'm still alive, I have to assume that I've been transfered into a hospital. Was it the one he works at? I already know I don't have any visitors, with me being so new at the school I'm going to and my friends being half a country away. Do they know?

I thought about my room. Bare as it may be, I still grew attached to it in the short time that I was there. My computer and weights, sitting in the corner collecting dust. My comfy bed, too good for this world. There wasn't that much else I missed in the real life, which was somehow more depressing than the rest of my thoughts.

I wasn't an expert in medical things or anything else really, but I just thought about my real body laying on a hospital bed, with those tubes stuck into my arm. The realization that my muscles were going bye bye in my little cyber-vacation struck me. I was laying on a bed, not eating or drinking anything. I was rotting away, disappearing. If I died here, only my dad would know. He can't, shouldn't, mom already did. Tubes stuck into my arms. My friends back home probably forgot about me by now. I didn't make the news, I wasn't newsworthy. What are they saying back at school? I care, I don't look like it, but I care. I'm not a punk, I'm dying inside of a video game. I want out. I didn't want to be stuck in here. I didn't even see his face before he died.

A shout made me trip over myself. Whirling my head around, I tried to locate the noise. Another shout followed by a slam to my left had me running towards the general direction. I didn't know where I was going due to the sun being obscured by the thick canopy (can that even be used in a forest?) but that didn't matter at the moment. What matters is I find the source of the scream.

Thinking about the voice made my lips purse in thought. Not only was the scream familiar, it was also less of a fearful one. More like a spirited one, something you would do if you watched a little too much TV.

Bursting through some bushes brought me into the thick of the fight. Or, more accurately, the aftermath of a fight. A wolf by the figure's feet lay dead on the ground before bursting into particles. Letting my eyes rise, the figure had his back to me, tapping through his menu as he let his sword hang lazily to the ground. If his excited mumbles said anything, it was that he got some good drops.

I scrutinized the figure. It was definitely a guy, but something felt familiar about him, even though I could only see his back. The pieces of the puzzle clicked together a little too slow as he turned towards me, jubilant expression dropping as we locked eyes. There was a pause, bringing me back to the first time that I met Coco. His eyes were the last piece I needed, realization dawning on me the same time as he.

"Holy shit, you're the guy that stabbed him," Well, okay. First, what the hell kind of a greeting is that. Second, I distinctly remember slashing.

"I am," I replied as bluntly as him.

The guy seemed to go into a minor fit, letting me take the opportunity to read his username. 'Aleph'. Strange name, but I'm not to judge. Not with mine.

He pointed to me, looking me dead in the eyes. "I, uh. I," he sighed, his entire body slumping at the action. "Shit, this isn't really how I imagined this being. I wasn't expecting to ever see you again, honestly."

I had to agree with him. Though I did technically save him, I never actually gave him a second thought. My mind was too busy with other things that I didn't consider the fact that I saved the life of another person. The thought almost brought a smile to my face.

What definitely wiped any semblance of positivity from me was the stuttering mess that I was witnessing in front of me. The heroic, happy-go-lucky looking figure that killed a pack of wolves is gone now, replaced with a guy that is mumbling curses at an alarming frequency under his breath. I wondered why so far I was meeting weirdos. Sure, Coco was a nice girl once you got to know her, but the sheer silence that I had to deal with the first day we met was staggering. Aleph looks like a normal guy, an image which is broken when he becomes a stuttering, cursing mess that he is right now. On the other hand, I can't say I'm the conventional definition of normal either.

I've been being judgemental lately. Even though my philosophy is still live and let live, in my mind I've been judging all of the people that I've met since this whole tragedy started. Meaning the last two people. Coco's nice, yet I couldn't help but judge her because of how quiet she originally was. Well, still is. Aleph has barely let a few sentences out and I couldn't help but have a lower opinion of him. Are first impressions that important? I disagree. But yet my brain continues on as if it agrees. Why am I only having this problem now? Is it because of the increased stress of my situation? How I'm discerning people more due to the loss of trust? How can I continue on as a member of society acting like I am now?

Aleph smacked himself in the cheeks and then straightened up. Coughing into his fist, he dusted himself off and looked me directly into the eyes again.

"Okay look, I'm going to just up and say it. Thank you," I blinked in surprise as he lowered himself into an awkward bow. Amazing how even in the game you can tell if somebody doesn't stretch. "Thank you, thank you, thank you. You have no idea how much this all means to me. Thank you. You have my eternal gratitude, seriously. Thank you. I don't know how I could ever repay you," a glance above my head, "but I'd do anything for you man, seriously."

Awkward. What did I just say about the judging? "Walk with me."

He looked up, still bowing. "Eh?"

"You have to be a high level to walk comfortably in the forest alone, right?"

As soon as the words left my mouth, he straightened out and puffed his chest out, adopting a proud look on his face. "Level nine."

Showoff. How did he get so high so quickly? "I see. I'm heading over to the mountains so that I can grind without interruption from others and I'm a little bit intimidated by the forest," I said.

"Why?" Another quick glance above my head. "Nevermind."

I took a quick look at my menu, more to break the awkward end of the conversation than anything. Before I looked at my inventory, I noticed a notification on my friends tab. Ignoring the inquisitive glance that Aleph gave me, I opened the conversation with Coco to see a new message.

Coco: Are you surviving the forest well enough?

Well that had an obvious answer. While I'd tease her about talking more in text than she did in person most days, I took her concern well enough here. It's only one mistake to get mauled by fake hungry wolves. I'm sure she'd get angry if I mentioned that my mind wandered while traveling agan, so I left that part out more for my safety than anything else.

J: Well enough. Guy from the start of the game here.

In the time It took to type that, I noticed Aleph fidgeting impatiently. Luckily for him, the conversation between us ended just as quickly as it started.

Coco: I see. I will be checking on you later then.

Checking? I could handle myself fine enough. Ignoring the subtle jab , I exited the conversation. Closing my menu made Aleph breathe out a sigh of relief and perk up again.

"Aight, so you need somebody to watch out for you in the forest, right? Say no more dude, I've got your back!" he said.

Despite the stilted conversation, I felt a bit lighter when he said that. Ignoring the social awkwardness, I could tell how genuine he is in everything he's done. The sincerity in his voice as he thanked me rose my spirits and his smile as he said he had my back made me feel as if I could count on him. Sure, I was still living with the guilt of killing somebody that I would never even know the face and voice of was still pinging in the back of my skull, but looking at a person whose life I've saved gave me an amazing feeling. Me! Saving a life!

"So then," I started. "Let's head off."

He nodded and started walking alongside me. The cool air the game simulated felt good against my skin-

"So, how's it been going?" Aleph asked, looking at me.

My moment of contemplation was broken by his words. It took me a second to recover and then another to formulate a response. "Yeah, it's been, been going okay I guess."

He hummed in response. "So how have you been living exactly? You don't look like you can live even a short walk in the forest," he blinked. "I mean, not insulting your skill or anything, but I mean, how uh. You know."

I raised an eyebrow as he became a stuttering mess again, mixing his stuttering with swears of different languages. I blinked as there were a few that I didn't even know existing thrown among the usual ones. Feeling a little sorry at the sight, I had two options to divert him from his current self: either tell him what he wanted to know or change the subject to why he's in the forest. Even though the subject of killing a person is you know, a little bit touchy, I decided that indulging him in more personal affairs was warranted. Killing a person may be a sore spot but I bet that he doesn't feel too good about nearly being killed either.

"It was hard for the first few days," I said, causing him to stop his rant and refocus his attention on me. "I only had a few of the healing crystals that I bought before _that _announcement. I wasn't skilled enough to even kill a few boars without taking a few hits," the bastard laughed, "so there was no way that I felt confident enough to make it through the forest. To preserve healing items, I just stopped moving after my health fell down to half. I didn't really have a plan to traverse the forest while I was moving, I just knew that I needed to continue moving."

Really, this entire journey so far has amounted to nothing more than dumb luck. Using most of my money to buy healing items before knowing my life was on the line, being in the exact place while a murder was happening, coincidentally avoiding all players despite being near the starting city, finding a chest, meeting Coco, and meeting the person that got me into this situation in the first place. Not that I was bitter about the fact, each second I spent near him made me glad that I didn't stay within the gates, but I digress. The realization that I was probably the luckiest motherfucker in the entire game has been slowly dawning on me this entire time. Meeting Aleph put the fact on full shine. I could understand meeting another person where Coco was, as that area was supposed to be an easy yet far grinding spot. Impractical as hell, but it could be used. But with Aleph out here, at the same time I'm walking through?

"How'd you live?" Right, telling a story.

"I literally ran into a girl as I was running away from boars," another laugh. "Turns out she was on the verge of death also. I healed her and helped with her boars and she helped with mine. As a favor she kept me supplied with healing crystals as we grinded together."

"Right," he said, nodding. "Well, I'm glad that you lived man. Seriously. I wouldn't be able to thank and walk with you right now if it wasn't for that. Is that gay? Am I sounding gay right now?"

What. "So why were you out in the middle of the forest?" I said, changing the topic before he could have another aneurysm.

"What? How don't you know?" We had a staring match before he broke his gaze away. "Right, shit sorry. Well, I read online that this was a great place to grind when you're level seven and above. As long as you stay on the edge of the forest you should be fine, I read," he pursed his lips. "I mean, they said we should be okay as long as we make our trip through quick."

This was definitely not matching up with Coco's information. I wasn't about to point fingers though. While I don't know where Coco's information came from, neither did I for Aleph. Plus, even if his information was true, it could've been changed from the beta to now.

Rolling my hand around to say, 'get on with it', he continued. "Right. I've been here for a few days now, just getting my level up. I started a little early at level six, but that's okay," I must've made a look on my face because he held his hands up and slowed his pace. "Dude, don't look at me like that! Beta testers aren't coughing up the information to hog the good loot to themselves. I need to be ready to help with the boss raid when they're starting!"

"Why?" I said, stepping over a rogue root that was sticking out of the floor. Whenever I feel like I would stop being impressed by the game, another twist comes like that. Remarkable, this level of detail.

He slowed his pace down even further, much to my grief. "Look man, I think I've said this a lot, but I can't fucking thank you enough. I thought for sure as that dude was standing over me that my, I was about to die. Literally my life flashed before my eyes just like in the fucking movies dude. You gave me another chance man. And you literally made your chances of survival lower just to help me, a dude that you've never met."

I opened my mouth to retort only to be interrupted. "No, look. I know what it means to be with an orange cursor and all that happens when you have one. It sucks, dude. You literally made your own life more difficult just so you could save me. I'm not going to sit on my ass after you did that. I'm going to be one of the people helping in the floor one raid, I swear to God."

Calling it a heartfelt moment is odd. On one hand, he is pouring his heart out to me and telling me that he'd use his second chance at life saving however many other people's. On the other hand, he used a frankly inappropriate amount of curse words and acts just like a stereotypical American.

The moment, that I'm still trying to decide if it was heartfelt or not, was interrupted by a pack of wolves revealing themselves from the thicket. Apparently, they used the opportunity of our slow pace to surround us.

Aleph let out a large smile as he looked at me. I decided to get caught up in the moment and let out one as well.

...

"So you have watched the movie Saw?" I asked, stepping over another root. I took a moment to observe it and was disappointed: it was the exact same as al the other roots in our trek.

"Of course I have dude," Aleph said, sorting through his inventory as we were walking. "Not that I've watched every American movie that you could think of, but it was pretty famous with the people that I hung around with."

"Alright, so you know that we're trapped in a death game?" I said, hoping that I didn't overstep my bounds.

"Of course," he said, his expression turning dark.

"Well, is the mechanic of the player's own death an innovative mechanic or worthy of its own genre?"

At first he didn't react. As my words sank in, his expression lightened up until it became curious. "What?"

"Look at it like this. There's a bunch of rogue-like, lite, whatever games that are out there. They all have different playstyles from each other, yet they're still all classified as rogue-whatever."

His face scrunched up in confusion. "So are you saying developers should make more games with a player death mechanic?"

"No, no," I corrected, shaking my hands back and forth. "But think about it. Does including the player's own death deserve its own genre or is it simply an innovative mechanic?"

"I'd think it deserves its own genre," he said after a pause. "Like, it changes the entire way we play the game."

"Exactly!" I exclaimed. "So I thought of a name for SAO and any game in the future that does this: Saw-like."

After another healthy pause he started laughing. "That's good, that's good," his face lit up. "Yo."

I looked around. The trees were finally thinning out enough for me to see past them. In the distance, much closer than before, were the mountains that I've taken weeks to reach. A smile broke out of my face as I let out a, frankly uncharacteristic, whoop of joy.

Aleph put his hand on my shoulder. "Well dude, do you even need me anymore?" I shook my head. "Well then…"

He took his hand off and fidgeted around awkwardly. Throwing him a bone, I was the one that sent the friend request. His eyes brightened as he received the notification.

"Thanks dude," he said, accepting it. After looking over the screen, he smirked. "But seriously, why J?"

I shrugged. "Why not?"

Laughing, he turned back to the forest. "Well, you do you dude. Hey! If you ever need me, just send me a message. Seriously. I owe you big time," he turned his head back. "You get that right?"

"Are you sure that you're going to be alright on the trip back?" I asked.

"Are you kidding dude? I leveled up two times!" What? I only leveled up once.

"Seriously though, pop me a DM if you ever need any help, aight? I'll be there for you dude!" the entire time he's been talking he hasn't been walking.

Deciding to help him, I shooed him. "Go on already!"

"Yeah, yeah! I'll see you later dude!"

I watched as his retreating form blended in with the darkness of the forest. Sighing in content, I turned back to the mountains. This is it. I'm almost to the place I want to be. Just a few more miles and I will be able to grind to my heart's content.

I opened up my menu and saw multiple notifications under the friends tab. Did Aleph send this many messages already? I suppose it fit what I learned about him in the brief time we interacted.

Opening it up, I saw they were all by Coco.

Coco: How did the meeting go?

Coco: Are you making it through the forest safely? We did go over all of the places you should avoid, there's no reason that you should be in any trouble.

Coco: You didn't get attacked by wolves, did you? Please respond.

Coco: I just asked. You cannot message dead people, so you should still be alive. Please respond, please.

Coco: If you are not dead, I will make sure you are the next time I see you.

Shit.


	4. Case: Kirito

Finally reaching the mountains was the highest I've felt in SAO so far, both in a literal and metaphorical sense. I could see the landscape in the distance, aweing me as the game frequently does. Near the base of the mountains is a small inn and shop, one that doesn't have guards and accepts orange players. It isn't a safe zone, but it's good enough for now. Even though the prices of everything burns a hole in my wallet.

The areas that Coco continually informs me about lets me move around, avoiding the occasional beta tester that found themselves here. The mountains are both riskier and less risky than the forest. On one hand most of the mobs here run solo, a great relief after the multiple close calls being surrounded has done to me. On the other hand, they're a much higher level than mine. On the first few days of being here, I ran out of crystals within a few battles and would have to resupply back at the inn. The costs of them were extraordinary, explained away by the NPCs that shipping any kind of items to them is hard when you're surrounded by deadly monsters. A logical explanation, though I would've taken a little bit of immersion breaking in exchange for cheaper prices.

On the third day, money was becoming a legitimate problem. I used the rest of my money on healing crystals after a mountain lion got the drop on me. Deciding it worth the risk, I went back to the forest to grind what were hopefully easier mobs. Wolf fur makes a killing wherever you are. After a day of tireless grinding, I gathered enough fur and used so little crystals that I gained money that day. For the next week, that became my schedule. When I ran low on money I would go back into the forest and make some. After I had enough for at least two days of healing items, I would go back into the mountain's grinding areas to level up faster.

My level was shooting up, unlike when I was grinding basic boars with Coco. Before a week even passed I'd leveled up two times, making me at a healthy level eight. Things were looking up with me. Slowly but surely I was climbing in level, slowly making it so that I could traverse the forest solo even at night. Eventually I could take on the quests in the mountains, if Coco's sources were accurate. Best of all, I could breathe easy knowing that I wasn't going to be blown over by a strong wind. Fighting for the entire day improves you. By now I constantly check my surroundings, activate sword skills by habit, and can dodge or block attacks at a moderate frequency. Though I was sure that my dodging wouldn't hold up if I was faced with new mobs, the improvement that I saw in myself brought my mood up to where I could safely say I was comfortable. Not exactly happy, but not sad.

After what was a little bit more than a week of arriving at the mountains, my search for prey was interrupted by an alert that a friend messaged me. Taking a look at my surroundings, I determined that it could wait until I got back to the inn. Snow leopards are vicious. They're the type that wait in trees and ledges until you stop so they can get the first pounce on you. I may have been comfortable, but that doesn't mean I liked wasting money.

Walking back to the inn let me take in the sights of the mountain for the . By this point I nearly memorized the routes between the grinding areas me and Coco selected. The rocky mountains were dotted by tall trees that only had leaves at the higher parts of them. The mountains had well worn roads circling around them, making it conveniently easy to navigate through the area. Caves and rivers were far and few between, both being places that I stay away from. Caves just spell trouble and Coco told me that rivers spawn more powerful mobs nearby.

A long path that winds down till it reaches a flat alcove on a mountain leads to the inn. 'Ye Old Naysayers' it reads on the front, in a joke that flies over any non-english speaker's head. Reaching the bottom of the path, I kick a few pebbles along as I walk towards the log cabin. Before I could make myself visible by the front window, I press myself against the wall to make sure it's safe.

And just as I thought, there are voices inside. Some NPCs apparently talk to each other even when there's nobody around, a theory that has yet to be proved, but in all of my time staying here there hasn't been a peep of conversation between the elderly couple who ran the place.

I sighed, opening up my DMs. This has happened three times before and so I will do as I always do: sit outside until they're done. Opening up the message I got, I started reading.

Aleph: Dude please, I seriously need help.

Aleph: Please.

Aleph: PLEASE

Aleph: Oh wait, youre probably grinding. Nvm, answer when you can.

I blinked. In all of the time that we've been messaging each other, Aleph has simply been his, what I assume to be, usual awkward self. That fact impresses me, as I've never seen someone be awkward across text. He's never asked for my help though. Intrigued, I responded.

J: What's up?

Aleph: Oh thank GOD youve responded. Its about the raid

J: What about it?

Aleph: Havent you heard?

I refrained from responding. Sure, I did keep up on the current events through Coco, but it's not like he knows that. I like messing with the guy, I've found.

Aleph: Wait, dumb question, sry. The raid! Ppl say that the boss has been found!

Now that definitely wasn't something that I heard from Coco. Interest piqued even further, I devoted my entire attention to the conversation.

J: Seriously?

Aleph: Seriously! If the boss has been found, then the raid cant be too far off!

J: Are you underleveled?

Aleph: Underleveled? Im level 11!

J: Showoff.

Aleph: Haha but seriously. Id like to be level 12 before I even think of joining the raids. Id like to grind in the dungeon but theres no way thats safe without sombody else to help

I groaned at his words. Though I totally agreed with them, I saw the problem already. Gleaming from the conversations we've had, while Aleph is totally grateful and open to me, he is by no means great at talking to others. Maybe it's shame to his obvious awkwardness or something along those lines, I don't know. The problem that comes from this is that he doesn't like approaching people for near anything. I felt like slamming my head on a wall when he told me that he was once afraid to approach someone and it turned out it was an NPC.

The fact that he's turning to me is disturbing. Either he doesn't have any friends that are a high enough level to accompany him, or he just plain doesn't have any friends. Knowing him from our conversations, I'd be willing to bet money on the latter.

This is a predicament though. He probably came to me as a last resort, knowing that there's no way I have anybody that I can ask to join him. At this point, he probably realizes that he's screwed.

I slapped my hand against my head. Skimming the badly written paragraph that he wrote while I was thinking which boiled down to a plea for help, I wrote my response.

J: Hold on a second.

Aleph: Is that a yes or a no?

Closing our conversation for a second, I opened another one.

J: You there?

I waited for a minute. Realizing what was happening, I groaned as I started typing again.

J:Look, I can't be looking at my messages all the time, especially when I'm in an area infested with mobs. However, it was my fault as I opened up the menu multiple times and didn't notice your messages. I'm sorry.

Her response didn't take long.

Coco: What do you want, I'm trying to grind.

J: Is this little number correct in that you're level 10?

Coco: It is, what of it?

Coco: Wait a second.

Coco: Okay I'm back

I grumbled as that entire time I was typing my next sentence. To be fair, I was trying to word this as delicately as possible.

J: How close are you to the dungeon? And could you fight in the dungeon?

Coco: At the moment? Pretty much right next to it, shouldn't be more than a ten minute walk. And I'd be able to survive pretty well if I was stacked up with healing crystals, which I am. Why?

J: Let's say that I have a friend.

Coco: That guy that you helped out, right? What about him? Is he stuck there or something? Needs an item?

J: This friend wants to join the boss raid.

Coco: Wait. What?

Coco: There's a boss raid?

J: They've found the boss.

Coco: Really? I might need to get a new informant, I'm hearing nothing about this.

Coco: So he wants to join the raid?

J: Yes.

Coco: Well good for him, what's stopping him?

J: He wants to be level 12

Coco: Oookay.

J: He doesn't want to grind alone in the dungeon.

Coco: No.

I groaned again and ran my fingers through my hair. While Coco was definitely, well, nevermind, Coco was just as bad as Aleph. While Aleph can talk, albeit extremely awkwardly, Coco just doesn't talk to others at all. At most she will use hand gestures and single word answers if she needs to interact with others. Unlike Aleph, she feels no shame about this. Seeing Aleph's nature was just through my own observations. Coco bluntly told me that she doesn't talk to other people on her own violation. Like I needed the hardship of getting an antisocial person to work with others in my life.

J: Look, you don't even have to talk to him, just work together.

Coco: I don't want to. I know that you can think, you have a bad habit of doing it in the middle of a fight, so I know that you've thought about this. Just because we both know you does not mean we know each other.

Coco: There's nothing connecting the two of us. I don't even know what the guy looks like. I do not want to talk to him and I'm sure he'd just stutter the entire time because I'm a girl.

I regret telling her that he stutters.

Coco: I'm sorry but there's a limit to what I will do just because you saved my butt. I do not want to work with someone else.

J: Okay, why do you want to level up?

The response she typed up took an abnormally long amount of time.

Coco: I don't want to say.

J: Well you do want to level up, right?

I took the lack of response has a reason to go on.

J: I understand why you want to go solo, but if you team up you can safely grind in the dungeon and get major EXP. That's something I can't do because of my situation. Don't waste this free EXP. If you need to know, he's level 11. You can just stick around for a little time until he's leveled up and run off. Hell, maybe you can get to level 12 in the time you're with him

If I wasn't shaking my hands to wear off the pain, I would be crossing my fingers. Seriously, typing shouldn't hurt this much, especially with how much I did it in real life.

I blinked. Hurting definitely didn't happen in real life but my typing speed was always awful. Why is that? I wasn't exclusively a PC gamer and I didn't play video games all the time but in the years that I've played you would think that I'd have picked up the pace. As of now I believe my typing speed is somewhere around fifty words per minute? That's pretty pathetic if I remember correctly. Furthermore, I shouldn't be feeling pain. The moment that I thought that the aches slowly faded away, making me look at my fingertips in confusion. Was that all in my head?

I glanced back down at the conversation.

Coco: Fine. Where do I meet him?

Coco: Earth to J, with your weirdo name.

J: I can't believe that you didn't take English as your second language.

Coco: I can't believe that you're still mad about that.

J: I'm not mad.

Coco: Yes you are.

J: I will be back with the info.

Coco: Mad.

Closing the conversation, I opened up the other one to be flooded with a bunch of Aleph's messages. I sighed. We need to work something out the next time we see each other.

Aleph: Seriously, its okay if you cant get anybody! I know your situation and its cool.

J: I have somebody.

Aleph: What?

J: I have somebody.

Aleph: What? How? You don't know anybody.

I cut off his message before he can even type it by preemptively typing my own. At this point I can read him like a book, a fact that felt strange..

J How do you want to meet them?

Aleph: Nonono sorry for sending that I didnt mean tmeet them?

Aleph: Uh, how about the front of the dungeon?

J: Alright. I'll tell her that.

Aleph: Dude.

J: Her name is Coco. She's super tiny, bob cut in this day and age, you can't mistake her.

Aleph: Wait.

I closed that conversation so I didn't have to deal with that can of worms.

J: Alright, he wants to meet at the front of the dungeon.

Coco: Sounds good, who should I be looking out for?

J: His name is Aleph. Brown hair, brown eyes, yay height.

Coco: Is that so? Fine then. If I regret this then it's your head.

J: You can't even make it out here

Coco: I'm a higher level than you.

I let her have the last word. It's not like she was wrong. Closing out of everything, I let out a sigh. Though I haven't known either for long and barely seen them in person, whatever being in person means in this world, I've definitely become close to both. I was sure that nothing too disastrous could happen just because I let them grind together for a day. Sure, it was in one of the more dangerous spots on the floor, but I had faith.

I didn't even realize there was a sword pointed at my throat until I tried to walk away. Refocusing on my surroundings, I realized that there was a very angry looking black haired boy right in front of me. His features were exceptionally thin, and his blue eyes were boring into me. If it wasn't for the fact that his sword was slightly cutting my throat, I would've shifted uncomfortably. As it was, I wondered just what amount of time he's been standing there.

"Are you awake now?" he growled.

I pondered what to say. From what he's said, he had to have been standing there for a handful of minutes, just staring at me. I'd be weirded out If I didn't know why he was standing there and the fact that I was screwed.

There were no two ways about it, this guy was a beta tester. His equipment looked miles better than Coco's or Aleph's the last time I saw them, both who spent most of their time grinding. Not even mentioning that Coco and I agreed that the only people who would be in the mountains currently are beta testers due to the higher risk enemies and obtuse quests. Him pointing a sword at my throat was trouble. Even if I wasn't disadvantaged, I would probably still lose. He definitely knows how to swing that thing. If he decided to end my life right now then there's nothing I could do about that.

Not that I'd be planning to fight him. I decided that If I were to run into anybody here or at the forest it'd be easy to run away due to the treacherous surroundings. However, another problem presented itself with that. Speed is influenced by level. If this guy is so confident that he walks up to a player killer, my stomach turned at that, and brazenly challenges him to a fight, then I'm not too confident that I can outrun him either.

Maybe he's just confident. I nodded.

"Great," he said. "Now, why are you out here?"

"I needed to grind," I responded. So far so good. "I didn't want to run into other players either."

His face didn't change as he processed the information. "Why?"

"Why what?" I asked.

"Don't be smart with me," he growled, pressing his sword deeper in. "Why do you not want to run into other players?"

I shrugged. "Easier that way."

His sword pressed deeper in. I don't even know what I did wrong that time. "Did you kill somebody?"

I nodded, chipping away more health as the sword cut through my skin.

"You're being awfully forward about this," he said, narrowing his eyes.

"The way that I see it, I'm screwed no matter what I do," I responded. "You can beat me in a fight and probably can run faster than me. I still get hit by boars if more than two of them gang up on me."

His shoulders slightly rose and fell, hopefully because he chuckled. "Why do you want to grind?"

I thought about his answer. Why did I want to grind? Protecting myself was important but that's really an excuse. I didn't really expect to get attacked. There was a reason that I was avoiding people rather than sticking in more populated areas. I said that more as an off thought more than anything, though being confronted like this makes it seem I need to be more wary about the possibility. I couldn't participate in the boss raids, being an orange player and all. Definitely didn't want a teammate to 'accidently' push me into one of the boss' attacks.

So I decided to be honest.

"I have nothing else to do."

He blinked. Once. Twice. "What?"

"I mean," I continued quickly, "what else can I do? I can't go into cities, people would either avoid or attack me, and any of the hobbies that I had outside can't be pursued in here. If I didn't grind then I can't even explore the floor because of the areas with higher level mobs. It's either that I grind or sit on my ass avoiding people."

He took awhile to digest my words, the entire time without taking his sword from my throat. His posture relaxed slightly, yet he still had the blade touching my skin. Taking another second of hesitation, he finally sheathed his sword and ran out into the distance.

My heart was thumping in my chest. Is my real body's heart thumping along with this one? Are the nurses worried because it went up for no reason? That brings up a good point, how are the people in the hospitals? Do their bodies actually beat and feel fear along our own? Do we get boners as we sleep? I believe that the Nerve Gear paralyzes us in place, so I doubt that the outside of our bodies do much at all. It must be terrifying to walk into the rooms of one of us. Laying still like we're in a coma. I think that we would be classified as coma patients anyway. Either way. Strange. Strange. What's the price for our lives?

I hope that the government pays for this. There's no way that my dad's paycheck could handle a multiple week hospital visit. Has it been a month? I don't know, as far as I know there's no counter in game. A month. Maybe my dad could, it's not like I ever asked how much he makes. Does he save? I should've started saving. I don't have a job. Good thing too, or else I'd lose it in here. As if that's the most important thing right now. It's scary. The money this costs is a lot. Is my real body worrying about money too? My dad is a doctor, they make a lot.

My health is a quarter down. I could've died. He died. I never saw his face. I wonder if a single strike from his sword would've felled me. What happens to the body when we die? Do we just flatline? Do we wake up so we can experience reality another time… What's the point of this? He's a psychopath. But that can't be the reason. The effort and money that went into this is huge. A bunch of people died. Hundreds. He was one of them. I never saw his face. But Aleph is alive. Aleph. I sent him with Coco. How is he doing?

...

The dungeon looked weird. Not funny weird. Just plain weird. The walls, floors, and ceilings were kind of tripping me out. It was hard to keep alert with all the moving lights and all that shit that's been happening ever since we entered the dungeon.

Yes, 'we'. Not me as in alone, though that might've been better considering the circumstances. I threw a look at the girl walking beside me. J wasn't kidding when he said she was short. I wasn't the tallest guy in the world, being around 5'10… or was it 5'11? Either way, this girl was real short. If she didn't scare me, I'd ask her height.

And yes, even though that sounds so fucking pathetic, this girl that reaches up to my chin scares me. Now despite what J thinks, I can regularly talk to people. There's plenty of people that I talked to in real life! Girls too! The convenience store girl, my class president when there's shit that needs to be done, my teachers, I've had nice talks with my cousins sometimes! But this chick came up to me with the deadest face that I've ever seen in my life. Like, holy shit. I remember one of my friends sending me a dead body in the middle of the night to shock me and that lady had the same expression as this girl did.

Before I could even move towards an enemy that popped in front of us from around the corner, Coco dashed forwards and dismembered him. Yeah, that's a thing. The chick's vicious. That little axe that she holds and swings around is as big as her forearm, probably bigger, but that doesn't stop her from brutally killing every monster that looks at her wrong.

I'd probably be less scared of her if I could at least hear her voice. Maybe something like a 'Hi!' or, 'I'm only doing this because I got my ass saved by the same guy that saved your ass.' That'd be nice. If she had a cute voice, then maybe I wouldn't care about the fact that her dark brown eyes (seriously, they were almost black) bored holes in me whenever she looked in my direction. I can't even tell if she's pissed or this is just how she normally is.

This time two monsters popped out from around a corner. I swung my, as J put it, 'inappropriately sized sword' and slammed it through the koldo's arm before the thing could even take a swing at me. It hissed and tried to back off, not expecting me to thrust forward. I pierced straight through the thing, causing it to go limp and shatter. I grinned.

"Watch out!" Did she just say words?

The next second I got to see the tip of a sword that was just thrust through me.

"Motherfucker!" I yelled, pushing myself forward off of the sword.

Turning around, I saw that she was battling another koldo that definitely didn't come from the original group. In front of me was another growling one, the sword that he used to stab me poised for another strike.

"Not again, bitch!" I yelled, swinging my sword with all the might that I could muster. The monster's grip on his own weapon slacked, having it clatter to the ground as I sent him flying.

Landing on the ground and letting out a whimper, he burst into cubes. Glancing around to see if another motherfucker wanted to test me, I lugged myself over to where Coco was still fighting. After using a healing crystal, of course. Wouldn't do to die while grinding against a basic mob.

I didn't even need to worry about her. I got to see a full on display of a legless koldude whimpering as she dealt the final blow. As the results of the battle popped up in my menu, I slowed my pace. My grin came back full force. Despite the company, I was making good progress. In the little amount of time that we've been working together, I've gotten a quarter of my EXP bar full, making me halfway to level 12.

As I reached to where she was standing and reading over her loot, I reached my hand to give a pat on the back before retracting it. I liked keeping my limbs attached.

"Thanks for the warning!" I said, making her jump. I don't talk that loud, do I?

Her focus was put back on me. My smile became a little bit more strained. Jesus, it was like arriving home when I was late. I felt like I was standing in front of a jury or some shit.

The few seconds that she stared at me felt like hours. But eventually, she nodded and turned back on the path we were walking. And that made my smile more natural. The fact that she did have a cute voice was the icing on the cake.

Catching up to her, I widened my smile. "So, you really like axes, right?"

She didn't respond. Little steps.

...

Grinding for the entire day helped me take my mind of the fact that there was a very real chance that I could've died. Slicing open lions made me feel a little better, until they burst into particles, serving as a grim reminder that I would've looked like that. Granted, I don't even know if killing orange players makes other players orange, but I guessed that it wouldn't. Sounds reasonable, since oranges are supposed to be criminals.

After recovering from the shock I got back into the groove. Lion hunting became fun again. Got plenty of experience. Even got a rare drop, a ruby. No, that wasn't a lion drop, it came from a rock monster that dots the mountains sporadically. Thankfully, at this point the game isn't unfair. The rock monster's attacks are all mostly rolling towards you at an insane speed. It would be hell if you had to fight more than one of them.

Taking extra care as I entered the inn for other players , I let the warm surroundings soothe me. A fireplace was always kept up, probably due to the fact that it didn't even need wood to run. I doubt that Kayaba made a physics engine that good. Or did he? Either way, there were comfy green lounge chairs facing it. Nearly everything else in the cabin was made out of wood, the floor, the furniture, the doors. I walked up to the (wooden) counter and knocked on it. The door behind it opened, revealing the elderly man, Mr. Touchshriek. He wore a dark green sweater, the same color as the chairs, and had those circular elderly glasses. His remaining white hair stuck out in any which direction. The combined fact of his hunched back and short disposure made it so that I've never seen the lower half of his body, due to the counter blocking my view.

Speaking of the counter, at the moment I could only see the very tip of his head because it was so tall. I don't know why they built it so that It could reach up to a… 6 inch person's chest while both members of the couple couldn't even see over it. If I had to guess, it was Kayaba or whoever designed this place's way of giving the world character. I had to admit, It worked.

Touchshriek climbed up on his stool and smiled at me. Taking some papers from below the counter, he adjusted his reading glasses. "You want to extend your stay again, J?"

I leaned on the counter, eyeing downwards so I could try and see below his torso. Probably due to my years of playing, I was on the watch for any areas where they cut corners. Because of how I could never see his pants, I think it's reasonable to assume that something's not right. Maybe he's wearing a dress. Maybe it's untextured. Maybe there's nothing there.

"Yeah," I responded, not letting him know about my thoughts.

I leaned a bit further. "You know, maybe staying at a place where everybody knows isn't the best idea if you want to lay low."

The new voice made me jump and the old man laugh. "Hello again, Kirito!"

I whipped around and saw the boy that threatened me earlier today. His arms were folded and the corner of his lips were tilted downwards. He didn't have his sword out, letting me relax a little bit.

A notification of a money transfer appeared. I hit accept and turned around. The man reached under his desk and gave me the keys for my room. "At this point we're going to become an apartment rather than an inn with how many regulars we have!" he said, laughing.

Chuckling weakly, I grabbed the keys and turned to the newly named Kirito. He was still standing there, scrutinizing me. I gave a small wave. "So uh, hi."

His frown deepened. "Why exactly are you staying here?"

"I don't want to sleep outside," I frowned. "I might get attacked by a rock while sleeping."

He was looking more and more like a disappointed father. "So you chose to stay in an easily visible inn? One that beta testers know of and most people will easily see once they enter this area?"

Now it doesn't sound so smart when he puts it like that. "Yes."

As his face adopted a tart look, I took a second to think. Did I owe him anything? Sure, it sounds weird when you put it like, 'he wanted to kill me but didn't so I owe him', but I didn't word it like that. Sparing is a much nicer word. He spared me so I owed him. There's really only one thing that I could offer, meagre as some people may see it. I'm hoping that he wouldn't.

"Hey," I said, catching his attention once again. "You want to participate in the boss raid, right?"

He looked surprised at my words; it quickly changed into a wary look. He nodded.

"Did you know that the boss has been found?"

"How do you know that?" he instantly asked. I shrugged.

"I know a few people," the only two people that I know, "that are interested in that stuff. One of them found out because he's been hanging around the dungeon, I think."

His expression turned thoughtful, letting me breathe out a sigh of relief. The fact that this guy could probably one shot me wasn't lost in the excitement. I doubted that Mr. Touchshriek would even care if I was decapitated in his lobby. Taking a look behind me I despaired. He wasn't even here anymore.

"I did not know that," he said slowly. "Why are you telling me this?"

Another shrug. "As thanks," I wasn't lying.

He took a few moments to mull over my words. Opening his menu, he typed in a way that I recognized that he was opening the friends tab. After some back and forth with this unknown person, he closed it and looked back at me.

"Well… it looks like that's true," he slowly said. "Sorry for doubting you, I just don't want to walk all that way and have it be a lie."

"No problem," I responded easily.

After a brief period of silence, he turned to the door. "Well then, I should go. I want to be there when the raid starts."

Even though he couldn't see it, I nodded. "Good luck, man."

As he walked out, I let out a sigh of relief. At least I don't have to worry about being decapitated by that guy anymore. If I ever see him again anyway.

An alert in my messages stole my attention away from hiding in my room and sleeping. One was from Aleph and the other was from Coco. I opened the both of them.

Aleph: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

Coco: Your friend was as weird as I was expecting.

...

"And that's another bastard down!" I yelled, letting my sword slam down on the ground. Letting out a whoop, I looked over the results along with +Coco.

Just one more fight and I would reach level 12. I was really glad that I ended up asking J for help. Though It was just a method I used to stall from asking around for a party, he actually came through and got me a partner. That partner is also a silent girl that loves cutting off limbs a little too much, but beggars can't be choosers!

"I got 60 EXP from that fight, how about you?" I asked. The EXP system for parties is a little weird. You can choose to split it equally, which is what nearly everyone does, have it go to the person who killed the monster, or divide it by performance. How does it do that? I have no idea and neither does anyone else. I've heard of people warning others to stay away from that option due to how inconsistent it is. But Coco choose it. Because she's the head of the party. Why she chose that, I don't know.

She held up seven fingers. I smiled. "Well, I'm catching up to you. Slowly but surely!"

Turning back on our path, I double checked where we were. Floor four. Admittedly, I should've asked what the top floor was so we don't accidentally walk into the boss room. But we've been taking it slow, and Coco looks like one of those well read types, so I'm sure that she knows.

She poked my arm, causing me to look at her. She pointed to my level and raised an eyebrow. I really would've appreciated a forewarning that this girl prefers to speak in charades from J, but whatever.

"Only 48 away, one more battle against two kodles will level me up," her brow furrowed.

"Kobolds."

"What?"

"Kobolds."

I blinked before realizing what she was saying. I flushed red. "W-well anybody could've made that mistake. You know what I was saying anyway, shut up."

Our conversation, if you could call it that, was interrupted as three kodols- kobolds noticed us as we turned a corner. Getting into a fighting stance, I felt Coco's axe tap my arm. Looking over to her, she pointed to the left.

"Those two for you," she said, before bolting off to her own enemy.

Taking care of them has become child's play. Though they do bite if both of their arms are cut off, it's not nearly as deadly as the blades they carry. After stabbing the last kobold to death I turned to see Coco leaning against the wall looking at my fight. Turning away in equal parts embarrassment and anger, I looked at the results screen. The bar filling up and turning into level 12 made me pump my fist.

"Fuck yeah! That's how we do it!" I turned to Coco and held up my fist. Just as I was about to put it down, she reached up and bumped it with her own hand, making my smile grow wider.

"Well then, I think we're done here, right?" I asked, lowering my hand.

I was expecting a quick response, though I suppose I shouldn't with Coco. I should also be expecting that the entire time she's thinking she will simply stare at me, though that's a little harder to get used to.

"Let me get to level 12 also," she responded.

"Eh?" I said, making her look at me annoyed. "Nonono, I get it, yeah, yeah, that's good, yeah that's good, let's go kick some ass, aight?"

Her face turned back to normal and she turned to continue walking down the hall. I gave myself a fist bump. Thanks J.


	5. Case: Name Pending

The second the boss raid was cleared my life became more difficult. Players became confident that the game could in fact be completed. A new wave of players came out of the shelter in the safe zone and grinded in the areas around the town. More players meant that there weren't enough mobs for everyone. The higher leveled players started to move outwards, even the ones that were hesitant to out of necessity. At the time I didn't worry about the migration of players. Coco and I agreed that the mountain was never going to be an attractive spot for anybody in the game. There were quests, but nowhere near the abundant amount that could be found in the plains and towns. The only noteworthy grinding that existed is the rock creatures for their rubies, but the drop chance is so low that it wasn't worth the time and effort. To top it all off, the mountainous paths took a long time to actually navigate to the aforementioned quests. It was an attractive area to but a few people.

At least, that's what I thought until a day after the second floor was open. Waking up and stretching, I checked my messages to make sure that there was nothing urgent and saw that there were two, both sent by different people. Putting on some clothes and checking my inventory, I sat back down on the bed of the inn and glanced over both to make sure it was nothing urgent. I wanted to take advantage of the sunny day as yesterday it was raining. Fun fact: fighting in the rain is awful, even if the rain is simulated. I wondered how much worse actual rain would be to fight in. The physics were pretty damn realistic here. Mud was made from it, I slipped more, and my hair actually got a soppy feeling and look to it. I really wished I could find Kayaba so I could punch him then ask for his secrets.

Aleph: Dude, that rain was so fucking rad.

Alright, he could be held off until later in the day.

Coco: J, I need to talk to you.

Curious. Coco liked to talk to me often, but when she typed like that, it was usually serious. I'm not a sarcastic sort of guy, but I wondered if any kind of sarcasm would fly over her head. Another moment of consideration had me banish that thought from my brain. She already has promised to kill me two times over; I wasn't looking to raise that number.

Opening up chat with her, I noticed that she sent it an hour ago. If my clock was right, she sent that at 6:00 in the morning. Another morning person then. I was glad.

J: What's up?

Coco: J, you need to move, now.

That's foreboding if there ever was a use for the word. Just as she sent that, I realized that there wasn't the peaceful silence that usually permeated the cabin. There were voices. Outside. My door. Inside. The inn.

That would be a problem. I walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. I felt around the frame, looking for any way to open it. Clicking my tongue, my wish was granted in the form of a small latch at the very top. Unhooking it, I swung the window outwards and jumped outside. Though he may have been an NPC, I would miss Mr. Touchshriek. I cursed my incompetence as I realized that I never got to see what was below my waist. Knowing myself, that fact would haunt my sleep for the next week.

I didn't relax until I made it to the forest. On the way down I saw another group of people, people that I strayed far away from. From my knowledge on the cursor, they could only see it if they were within a certain distance of you. At the corner of my I eyes I saw one of them wave towards me. I picked up the pace.

Immediately upon entering the forest I sat with my back against one of the trees, flanked by bushes. I tended to get caught up in my thoughts, so even if I couldn't hear people approaching, hopefully they couldn't see me.

I opened up my DM with Coco again.

J: What the hell happened?

Coco: Somebody found a new quest at the jewelers. If they bring back ten rubies then he gives them a lot of money and a ring.

Coco: Before the third floor, there's only one place to reliably farm for rubies.

And that complicates my plan. I was not nearly the level that I expected to be before I got pushed off of the mountains. Due to the quest, there was no way that I could come back to the mountains for a little while. Going west was unfeasible, as there were mobs my level whose strategy was to surround and maul you. Staying in the forest was a no go too, as the people passing by could see me. There was no safe place to reside either, making it so that I'd have to get creative If I was overwhelmed by mobs or needed to sleep. Not to mention the lack of items.

I hit my head on the tree next to me. Dumb quest. I wondered if Kayaba could see me and decided that I deserved to suffer for what I did.

Coco: I have a plan, quit moping.

I do not mope. I typed back.

J: What?

Coco: At the south of the floor is a bigger forest. The area is actually very bad because there's more of the tree mimics and giant bees. Neither of those give much EXP or drops. However, there's a traveling merchant who passes through there and abandoned houses.

Coco: Less wolves in the area too. You can just hide in the houses and be relatively safe from everything when you need to sleep. Again, the only problem is that it's harder to grind there and the enemies are more annoying.

The whole prospect was attractive. I remember us briefly going over the forest before dismissing it entirely. Not only was it too dangerous for me at the time, but there were a good amount of quests that were tied there. People will be constantly in and out of the area. But with all of my other options cut off, what other choice did I have?

However, the fact that the forest was directly south of me posed a problem.

J: How will I get there?

Coco: You can walk there.

Coco understood the meaning well enough and knowingly didn't say anything. Again, my hands were tied with this. The other forest is just plain better than this one for long term survival and staying hidden at the mountains now would be much harder. Though I would have to pass through crowds of people, they will all hopefully be low leveled, since the higher leveled people are now grinding at floor two. Hopefully. If any trouble comes my way, I can always run. Unless they're a higher level, then I might be screwed.

J: I guess there's no choice.

I waited a few seconds then a minute. Then another. It doesn't usually take her this long to respond.

J: Coco?

Coco: Sorry, Aleph said something stupid.

My brow raised.

J: Aleph?

Coco: Yeah, me and him have been partying up since we worked pretty well during the dungeon grind.

J: Even though he's weird?

Coco: Nobody is perfect.

I smiled.

J: Well, the plains aren't getting any emptier.

Coco: That they aren't. Good luck, J.

And with that I closed the conversation. Taking in a breath of air, I started walking.

Which wasn't as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. There were multiple times where a group was passing by that forced me to duck into whatever cover that I had. At one point I swear that a dog that was following the group would expose me when he was sniffing the bush I was in. Thankfully, the group didn't think anything of it and just called the dog over.

Getting out of the forest took an entire day due to my paranoia. By the time I made it to the plains, the sun was setting. Even though I wasn't planning for it, I knew that It was for the better. There would probably be less people out, and even if there wasn't, my figure would be harder to see in the night. Looking around at the area I emerged at, I had the perfect idea to burn the rest of the time.

My little alcove in the hill hasn't changed, not that I expected it to. I didn't run into anybody on the walk from the forest to here. The ground was still moist from the rain the other day! The other day there was water from the sky and the floor was still muddy at places! Holy shit! My life may be on the line daily along with thousands of other players but SAO still deserves game of the year for just the realism in everything! How many people have died? Probably not the best time nor place to be thinking about that.

Reaching my alcove, a light 'eep' reached my ears and gave me pause. That came from my hole. My hole was currently taken up by another person. Another person is hiding in my hole.

My mind whirled with thoughts. For one, they definitely couldn't see my head. Unless they were looking at me as I approached, they definitely don't know about my cursor. If I walked away now then there's no way that I could be caught. On the other hand, I still had some time to burn before the moon replaced the sun. As of now there was a gentle orange light bathing the hills. I could stay and talk with somebody else. Hopefully they weren't too weird.

"You're in my spot," I said.

The silence that followed my greeting made me uncomfortable. I started to think that they did actually see me approach until they responded.

"D-do you want me to move?" a girl's voice responded.

"Nah, I'm fine. Just a little disappointed," I said. A shy one. I could deal with that. At least she properly responded to my words. "What are you doing here? I usually used this place to hide from enemies."

"Er, uh, um, yeah. That's it," she said. "Have you been here recently?"

"Nah," I responded easily. "I moved up to the forest and mountain as soon as I could. I'm not trying to be the most efficient person, if you can't tell. You're new, aren't you?"

The silence that followed was telling. I waited for a response, leaning back and forth on the balls of my foot. I felt bad about pestering the girl since it seemed that she didn't want to talk, but she was in my spot right at the moment that I needed it.

"Yes," she quietly answered, probably resigning over the fact that I wasn't going to leave.

"Yeah, I was like you also when I started," I said. "I never got into fights if I was under half health, even with healing items. I would just go back into town and rest for the day. Truthfully, I'm a little bit underleveled for the areas I'm grinding at."

A slight sob from the niche surprised me. I didn't know what this girl was going through but the pieces were slightly coming together about why she was hiding in a hole. I wanted to kneel down and comfort her, but I was still in the right state of mind to understand why that was an absolutely horrible idea.

"What's wrong?" I asked gently.

"I-I don't want to do this," she whimpered. "I can't t-take all of this fighting. My friends want to help with the floor clearing, but I can't do it, I can't just keep fighting all the time, putting my life on the line. Every time they get hit I feel as though I do also! I can't keep up my role as a tank, they keep getting hit!"

Well if there was something I didn't expect happening, it was comforting a girl who doesn't want to fight. "Is it that you don't want to fight or that you're scared you'll mess up?"

She was audibly crying right now. Are mobs attracted by noise? "Both. I-I just shake so bad w-w-when en-enemies attack us. I j-just want to run a-away so bad. B-But that would b-b-be letting my f-friends down."

I slightly bent down, not enough to reveal my entire head but enough for her to get a better look at me. "You're fighting with your friends?"

I let her take her time to respond. "Y-yeah. Me and m-my friends from real life g-got this game. W-we thought that it w-would be fun. But-" I let her take as long as she needed to. "My d-dumb fear gets in the w-way. They n-need me."

I pondered over her words. So she's scared to fight, something that probably doesn't help her performance, is fighting with her friends, and is so new that boars scare her. This was definitely not painting a pretty picture, for herself or her team. Despite being pretty confident in my abilities now, I've had plenty of close calls. Those never stopped and probably never will until the game finally ends.

"We're going t-to be moving deeper i-into the floor soon. I-I-I-" she couldn't continue. From the little of her body I could see, she was shaking pretty hard.

"I…" I didn't know what to say. I had to think about my next words. What would I do in this situation? "Have you talked to your friends?"

She didn't respond, so I leaned further down. She shook her head. "I'm going to be honest, you're always going to have close calls, do you understand me?" A nod. Right. "Fighting is full of that and nothing's going to change as you get further. In fact, it's going to get worse."

Is it just me or is her crying intensifying? "B-but that doesn't mean you should give up. From the sounds of it, you have really good friends, if they're still sticking together even in a situation like this. They'd understand if you told them how you felt during battles."

Her cries were dying down. Either she was listening or my words really were making her feel better. Or she's tired of crying? No, don't think like that. "They could slow down, help you get acclimated to the fighting. Enemies seem a lot scarier when you're not combat ready. Taking it slow isn't shameful, it's smart. Remember, this isn't a video game, well, it is, but if you die anywhere here you will actually die."

She curled up "Think about it like this: is it better for you guys to spend more time on the boars so that you can surely say that no enemy can make you flinch, or for you to lose your cool in the middle of a fight?"

I straightened my back as she rolled up like rolly polly up. The sun was still in the sky, though noticeably lower than it was at the start of this conversation. I drummed my fingers against myself as I waited for any kind of conformation from the girl who was still hogging up my little hidey hole. Not that I was bitter about that or anything, Totally not.

The ambient sounds that the plains naturally emitted filled the silence that sat in between of us. Unsure of whether or not I should talk, I tentatively asked, "So why are you in my hole anyway?"

A light, teary filled giggle came from below. "I told my team that I was coming out here to try and grind by myself. They let me go because they think I'm fine," she paused. "T-thanks for stopping. I appreciate it."

"No problem," I said. "I'm actually waiting for it to be night before I head out. That's why I came here in the first place."

Shouts touched my ears. I couldn't make out what they were saying but I knew that staying around probably wasn't a smart idea.

"Oh, those must be my friends looking for me," she sighed. "I… will think about your advice."

"Yeah, you do that," I said, getting ready to bolt.

"Wait! I'd like to-"

"No, you should stay down there for now. There's a few boars nearby and It wouldn't be good if they wandered over here," I said. That is an awful excuse, please don't see through my excuse, please don't see through my excuse.

"Um, okay," Good thing she's innocent. "But my friends," In my mind's eye, I saw her perk up, "My friends! Why don't I introduce you to them?"

My mind shut off. "Uh, what?"

"Yeah! I'm sure they'd love you, especially with how high of a level you are!"

High level? Her friends? Love me? This conversation was taking me through so many turns that I was not comfortable with.

"I've got to go," I yelled, turning tail.

"Wait! What?" she said behind me, probably trying to roll out of the niche. "Wait, hold on! Why are you leaving? Where are you going? What's your name?"

"Gotta go! Somewhere else! J!" I yelled back, disappearing from her view over the hill.

I didn't stop running 'till I was past the city.


	6. Case: Netco

Coco: We are coming to visit. Be ready for us.

The interruption was welcome but not enough to distract me from the situation at hand. Closing my menu, I focused my attention on my current surroundings After another night of grinding, I ducked in one of my favorite shacks in the forest. This one had a scenic view on a cliff overlooking a waterfall and the surrounding area. Though dilapidated, there were no holes big enough for any of the creatures to fit through. The mattress laying in the corner was dirty, though that meant little in a game. At least, that's what I told myself, in reality the stench that came from the lump was pretty bad.

Standing in front of me was the scariest person that I've met in the game so far. Peculiar things? His hair was spiked up and red, making me think he watched too much TV in his free time. Actually, did he style his hair right before putting on the nerve gear?" Anyways, he was white, though not pudgy at all like a certain American I know. He was thin and slightly pale, with bright blue, narrow eyes that stared down at me. Eyebrows were dyed red also.

Now for the scary part. He was in a suit. A damn suit. How he was both confident enough to walk out here and afford a suit already was terrifying. Next, his grin was dangerous. His thin lips curved upwards into a smile that did not bode well for anybody that it was directed at. Unfortunately, that person was me. The final part? He was pointing a knife at me. A singular knife. This man just happened to walk into this cabin, in a suit, and is confident enough that he will win that all he brandishes is a knife. This man who is standing in front of me was dangerous.

"Had a nice conversation?" he asked, grin stretching wider.

"Wasn't really a conversation," I responded, relaxing on what I'm starting to think is my deathbed.

He played with the knife in his hands, pacing slowly back and forth. He said, "Do you remember what you were doing three days ago?"

"Grinding?" I slowly said.

"Anything else?" he said, drawing out the y as far as his breath would take it.

I thought back to that day. There were more wasps than normal, I finished a quest that could be completed within the forest, I raised my level by a quarter. What else was special about that?

I would've slapped myself If I wasn't fearing for my life. Of course! There was a girl that was surrounded by wasps I found during my grinding session. I didn't stay to talk after killing them all though. Even though I formed friendships with Coco and Aleph, after a close encounter with another player here, I became more wary of other people.

"I helped out a girl that was surrounded by wasps."

He hummed in response, stopping his pacing. "A strange way to word it. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that you saved her life?"

I shrugged. "Either way works, right?"

"That it does, that it does," he remained standing there, a look of contemplation on his face. His smirk came back full force after that. "I will admit J, you intrigue me."

I blinked. "Me?"

"Yes, you. Do you know who I am?" he asked, turning to me. I looked him over, coming to the conclusion that no, I do not.

"No," I responded.

"That's right, of course! How silly of me to forget that you've been shunned from society for the infraction that you commited oh, so many moons ago!" he shouted dramatically, continuing his pacing. "If you must know, I am one of the great information brokers, one of the top contributors to the guide, rivaling Argo with the amount of knowledge I possess, Netco! Not that you didn't already know my name from the handy little info our HUDs give us."

I took a peek above his head. Just like he said, Netco.

"And right now, you must be shocked! Dazed! Perhaps scared for your life! Well, don't keep me hanging," he slid in front of me, his face belonging more to the devil than a man as he pressed the knife on my forehead. "Why don't you share your thoughts?"

"Scared, above all of those," I responded, heart trying to escape my ribs as I said that.

He kept his position for a few more seconds before snapping back to where he originally was, like the scene that would surely haunt my nightmares just now was just that: a dream. Did nothing to change his smile though.

"Hmmph, people usually have more of a reaction when I do that. Even," he flicked a fingernail on his knife, "the last orange player that thought this forest was a nice hideout."

Continuing his pacing, which was starting to get on my nerves, he started doing fancy tricks with the knife. "I will admit, I have been stalking you for the past few days."

He looked to me, as if expecting an answer. LIke I'd oppose, he's the scary man with a knife. "Why?"

He stopped his pacing again and raised an eyebrow. "You don't scare easily, do you?" his grin came back, though it looked more mischievous this time. "I like that. Anyway and anyhow, I'll let you in on a little tiny piece of information that people all over Aincrad are scrambling for: this forest contains my hideout."

I blinked. I was sure that if I actually knew who this guy was this information would be more shocking.

"Well forget what I said earlier, can you change expressions at all? I don't think I've seen your face change in the past few days I've been watching you. Are you sure the Nerve Gear didn't knock something loose up here?" he asked, tapping his head with the knife. "Well, it's none of my business. I must admit though, as time goes on I've become more paranoid than anything. You have to understand that the information broker market is very competitive and eh, how do we say it, deadly."

He walked in front of me and crouched down to eye level. "There were two possibilities with you entering the forest. Either you were here to kill me or use this forest as a hideout. As I observed you, I learned it was the latter. Though not for the reasons I was expecting. You help people when they need it, even if they'd brandish their weapons sooner than calling you a friend. Why is that?"

He stood up and walked to the door. "Let me say J, you will be an interesting person to observe," he looked back as he opened the door. "Now if you have any questions that need answering before I leave your life for an indeterminate amount of time, now is your chance."

Questions? Does the body in real life pee itself alongside my virtual one? "How do you gather information if your hideout is in a forest?"

He laughed, walking outside. "Trade secrets J, I will have to teach you how these things work later."

The door closed behind him. I slumped down on the smelly mattress. I thought I would be done with frightening moments when I arrived at the forest. There must be some grand ruler of fate who has decided that I will have extraordinary luck in exchange for scaring my pants off every other week.

I was laying my bed as the door opened again. Lifting my head upward showed two people that I desperately needed to see after the stressful event that just transpired. My limbs still felt like jelly for however many hours I laid here however, so I let my head fall back down on the mattress.

Poking on my stomach got my attention. I lifted my head again to see an annoyed Coco poking me with her… axe? Why did she have her axe out?

"Do you know who Netco is?" I blurted out.

Coco stopped her poking. Then her eyes turned wide. "Netco, the information broker that nobody has seen?"

Ah, so that's why he thought my reactions were subdued. I don't believe that information would've changed my reaction either way though. My face remained blank for the most part, giving me a 'doesn't give a damn look', or so my old friends said. I've never been so glad to have a blank expression as I have since the game started though. Beforehand people that didn't know me just saw my apathetic face and assumed I was just a weird guy (were they wrong?). Now as I'm being dragged into situations both dangerous and absurd it felt good that I had one of the best poker faces around.

"I guess," I shrugged my shoulders. "He kind of came in here and threatened me."

Coco was silent, her axe hanging by her side as she tilted her head in thought. "Why?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly.

He was as bizarre as he was dangerous. The fact that he's been successfully stalking me for a few days sends a chill down my spine as I think about it. Not even mentioning the hidden threats laced throughout his speech. However, his reason for following me was something I was still wrapping my head around. Is me being an orange player and helping out others really so shocking that It warranted stalking? I wasn't sure why I was still laying down and trying to think about it his motives as I wouldn't be able to discern anything more unless I asked the man directly.

Wait, how does he spread information if nobody's ever seen him?

"At least you don't have to stay here anymore," she stated.

I blinked. "Really? What do you have in mind?"

"Well," she started, "because of the-"

"The fuck's taking you guys so long?" Aleph interrupted, barging in with a loud slam causing Coco to jump. He was outside this entire time?

Coco whipped around and glared at him, causing him to yelp and slam the door just as loud as when it opened. Glaring at the door for a few more seconds, she relented with a sigh and turned back to me.

"As I was saying," she spat, "The second floor has a southern forest nobody enters."

"Why?" I asked.

"It's actually one of the many moments of bad game design interspersed throughout the game," she said. Was I about to get lectured? "Despite the dungeon only being possible to traverse if you're level eleven, the forest next to the town is useless to anybody over level ten. There shouldn't be anybody there."

Just like nobody was at the mountains and the forest. I held my tongue as I only wanted to say that due to frustration. It really was just bad luck that a quest led to my first hideout and the other one belonged to, who so far seemed, to be a sadistic information broker that found me interesting.

I considered if the move was a good idea in the first place. Yes, I was currently in this guy's hideout where it was easiest to stalk me. However, if he was an information broker that was worth his salt(who was Argo, anyway?) then moving a floor up probably wouldn't help. Furthermore, wouldn't a new floor bring a huge crowd of people eager to explore the new area? How would we move up the dungeon without being seen? I brought up my concerns with Coco.

"We aren't entirely sure," Coco soothed. "But there were less than one hundred people participating in the raid. Hopefully that means that there's less people up there."

Valid points. "Is there shelter?"

"Yes."

"How am I getting there?"

"The dungeon is pretty empty, I checked."

Well then. It seemed that they thought it through. Maybe it'd be more accurate to say, 'she thought it through. Though maybe I'm giving too little credit to Aleph.

"We going?" Aleph said, slamming the door open again on his entrance, making Coco jump yet again.

A glare was sent his way, one that made him visibly sweat. Literally. He was sweating bullets in the game, while he was nervous. I've heard of people sweating when they're nervous and I've never experienced it. Though perhaps I'm an outlier, with having both an amazing poker face and not having been in a situation that intense. Does the body sweat when our virtual self sweats?

"Yeah, let's go," I said, standing up.

Coco stood up and took as big strides her small legs would allow towards Aleph. Before he could react, she reached up on her tippy toes and smashed the back of her handle on his head. Yelping, he brought his hands up to cover the afflicted spot.

"Ow, I thought that there was a pain stopper or whatever," he moaned.

Rolling her eyes, Coco waved me over. Hesitant, I walked outside with the two, feeling the brunt of Aincrad's day hit me at once.

The waterfall was loud, masking any sounds that could've been made from any visitors that I could have. This area was an ideal hiding spot, all things considered. The waterfall masked noise, I had a view of the forest below since I was at the edge of a cliff, and the shack that I was in didn't stand out from any of the others in the forest. I'm surprised that this wasn't Netco's hideout, as it was both well hidden and beautiful.

Coco walked ahead without another word, making me follow behind her. Aleph slid up right next to me. "Wassup man?" he said, raising his hand.

I looked at his hand. What was he going for? Taking my chances, I slid my hand into his own and shook it. His expression turned confused.

"Nothing much. Being alone in a forest kind of limits the exciting things I can do," I responded.

He let out a nervous laugh. "Yeah, that's gotta suck dude," his expression fell. "Sorry."

I rolled my eyes. "You guys didn't visit to throw a pity party, right?" Because if they started then I might join them.

"Of course not!" he yelled, causing Coco to turn and glare. "Right, right, lower voice sorry. Uh, let me try again."

The forest thickened as we walked and the ground started to decline. Aleph talked again, with the same enthusiasm but much quieter. "Of course not! We came to see how our favorite or- sorry, our favorite uhh, person in this game? Yeah, person in this game is doing!"

His smile he gave was enthusiastic, so I let a small one grace my features. "Well then, how can I not be excited about that?"

"Yeah!" he pumped his fist. "I mean, we can party and shit later. Right now, we're going to smuggle you to floor two!"

I tilted my head."So you planned it also?"

Aleph ran ahead, leaning down and wrapping his arm around Coco, who turned with a glare at his face. He didn't notice, too busy smiling at me. "Well, I don't want to take all the credit for this. Coco here has an information dealer or something that told her all of the good and bad areas to grind at for level two. She asked about the forest or something and then we decided it'd be great new place for you and planned to transport you there!"

"I," Coco said.

Aleph looked down at her quizzically.

"I did."

Aleph looked at her blankly. Why did we have Coco leading us? Not to be mean to the girl but staying at her pace was painfully slow. Aleph wasn't too tall either but the spunk he put behind his strides made him faster than what you would expect of someone his height. It was strange, but there wasn't any other word I could think of than spunk.

"Hey, hey, don't forget what I did for this. I uh," he turned his gaze to the ground, thinking. "I uh, did like, I…" he trailed off.

Satisfied with herself, Coco shrugged off his arm. Aleph's pace slowed until he was back to my side, still looking to the floor.

The ground by now evened out and so I kept my guard up. Somewhere nearby was where the path through the forest laid, which more often than not had one person walking on it. Confronting yet another person today was definitely not on my to do list, so I kept my wary gaze scanning the trees for the first sign of the dirt path.

"W-well it doesn't matter! What really matters is that we get you to the second floor in one piece! You may be level eleven now but the dungeon's a pretty fucking dangerous place if you walk the entire way. Don't worry," he slammed a fist into his chest. "Your local level fourteen tank will take care of everything for you!"

Him talking about the tank reminded me of the girl who was crying in my hovel back almost two weeks ago. I wondered if either of them would seek out a guild. Aleph might but I couldn't see Coco reaching out to anybody to join. I worried for her. She may be level fifteen (Wait, how? Weren't they partying up often?) but that didn't mean she was immune to danger, especially if she was going to continue on up with the floor clearers. Same thing with Aleph, who wanted to be a floor clearer himself.

"But seriously," Aleph said quietly, "Thanks dude. Not for the whole saving my life thing! About Coco. Like, Coco's a really good partner. Except for hitting me a lot. And she doesn't talk that much. But other than that, she's super fucking awesome!"

What was that girl's name? Maybe I should've gotten it, but there's no trouble with not knowing. Aleph and Coco were the only people that I knew of after helping. It's not like I could check on her, or any of the people who I saved in this forest for that matter, as I couldn't enter towns with my cursor. The roots in this forest were the same as the ones up to the north, which made me a little sad when I first saw them.

"And then I said, 'Take that you bastard!' and cut off his tail. Then Coco just fucking jumped in the air like Spiderman or some shit and sliced his neck! It was like, woah dude, seriously."

Was I being stalked right now? Did he do the stalking personally or sent someone to follow me. That's how it had to work, right? He would have to command lackeys to gather information and spread it if he couldn't be anywhere in person. Wait, how did nobody know his real identity? If he spawned in the original town and was gathered for the announcement like the rest of us then somebody would've had to seen him.

"But fuck them man, they don't know. I really wanted to make them shut the fuck up, honestly. Maybe if you were there you could've sliced their heads off or some shit. Actu- errr, forget I said that. But you agree man, right? She's cute. They don't know shit."

My eyes widened at the implications. There's so many different things that could've happened all of them more incredible than the last. Meaning that none of them were probably true. What if he put his Nerve Gear on after the announcement and joined during the chaos? Why would somebody do that? DId he not hear the news? What if he didn't look at his mirror in the square? Would've it changed your look even if you didn't take a peek at it? Maybe he's still in his avatar. His hair would make sense then. But what if! What if he's Kayaba himself? Why the hell is Kayaba stalking me?

"But I know it's like, bad to say this kinda shit or something, but I gotta thank you again man, seriously. I never really got along with a lot of people since the move. In real life, ya know? Everyone at my school just called me loud and stupid. Fuck them man. Fuck them."

How long has he been stalking me, anyway? Sure, saying that he's only been doing it when I entered the forest is plausible, but there's no reason that he would be telling the truth. Maybe it's been since the first night. I never saw his face. Or maybe it's been since the cabin? He could've seen me at any point during my exile. Maybe he was doing a quest with the box and saw me digging it up from the ground.

"Whatever though, I don't give a shit about them. I'm in this game now, shit's different now."

A small smile was brought to my face at the memory. I wasn't very happy when all of the crystals that came from the time capsule were used in less than thirty minutes of unearthing them, but I couldn't complain about the outcome. I smiled. The money really helped me as I bought a bunch of healing crystals with it. The painting was still sitting in my inventory. And the teleport crystal-

Teleport crystal. Teleport crystal? Teleport crystal!

Teleport crystal.

"I have a teleport crystal," I said, interrupting whatever Aleph was saying.

Coco stopped walking and slowly turned around. Her face was blank, not showing her thoughts.

"How?"

"Remember the box?" I said. Aleph was looking in between the two of us with a look akin to a lost puppy.

"Ah," Coco responded. "We will catch up."

Coco strode ahead, surprising Aleph. He ran off to her retreating form, head still swiveling between the two of us. "Wait, what box?"

I watched them go until they melded into the ambience of the forest. Their voices didn't fade, however. I could still hear Aleph's cries of pain from where I stood.

Taking a deep breath, I used the crystal. Best get this show on the road.

...

The next few moments were a blur. The second I teleported I checked the directions and bolted south. I didn't stop until I broke the treeline. Breathing heavily, I leaned on the tree nearest to me and checked my surroundings.

A tapping on my back broke me out of my trance. Slowly turning my head, I saw the grin that terrorized my morning.

"The infamous Netco, the information broker nobody has seen, who has an army backing behind his words! The man who was so scary that an orange player fled his forest the day that he learned whose attention he caught!"

He took a low theatrical bow, one arm wrapped at his waist and the other raised into the air. "Ah, but where are my manners? I'm so caught up in my own accomplishments that I forgot of the extraordinary player standing in front of me! Tell me J, how do you like floor 2?"

I took a look around. It looked like floor 1, honestly. Forest, plains with slight hills, a blue sky. I noted how there weren't those crazy hollow hills or waterfalls dotting the plains to make it look cool. Rather, it was looked straight out of a movie made about Europe. Rolling hills and that's entirely it.. Wait, if Coco doesn't talk to people, how did she meet the information brokers?

"It's nothing special," I responded. A slight lie on my part. The game still stunned me whenever I thought about it deeply, thinking of the amount of work each piece took. But the last floor was definitely a great first impression. With the second not looking much different, in fact looking even more like real life, it was underwhelming in comparison.

"Yes, I'm afraid that the next few floors aren't too exciting either," I turned back to him. "Kayaba, in all of his infinite wisdom, spent most of the time designing the mechanics of the game rather than making anything else amazing. Which is fine, but if you ever do a run on the dungeons outside of the ones containing the floor boss, you'll notice how most of them look the exact same."

"There's a lot of cut corners too," I responded. "They didn't make more than one root model, so all of the roots sticking out of the ground on floor one looked the same."

He regarded me with surprise, lips slowly inching upwards. "My my, I was not aware I was in the presence of another game aficionado. This is why I like you, J. You're so full of surprises. You have green cursor friends, ones that care about your safety, and you take in your surroundings so well you notice something not even my superior brain notices?"

He tapped the side of his head as he walked to a tree. "I will continue watching with interest, J."

Walking behind a tree and out of my sight, I hesitated before inching forwards. Walking around the tree revealed that he pulled a disappearing act on me. Does he have to practice acting like that or does it come naturally to him?

Footsteps behind almost made me bolt into the forest until a shout came from them. "Ay J, how'd you make it here before us? You must've fuckin' double timed it!"

I turned to the two figures running towards me. Aleph was waving his hand wildy while Coco looked like she was struggling to keep her pace.

"Yo man, how'd you get here before us? We've been running the entire time!" Aleph said.

I shrugged at the two of them. "Magic."

Aleph caught up to me, big grin present on his face. Jumping in place as a jogger at a stoplight would, he gestured wildly to the area around us. "Dude, I can't believe it though. All those crazy cliffs, pretty waterfalls, and shit like that aren't anywhere here! It's just a bunch of boring hills and a forest. We've been fucking scammed, I'm telling you! Like, there's not even any kind of fantasy shit going on here! Where's the floating islands or fields of fairies!"

The blow to the back of his head threw him forward. He glanced back with a pitiful expression at the apathetic gaze of Coco. He whined as he turned away from the both of us, arms crossed around his chest as he grumbled something along the lines of 'She doesn't hit him', His antics aside, he was entirely correct. With a second time to take in my surroundings, it was entirely dull for a video game environment. There weren't any special landmarks from what I could see, other than the town that I just ran away from in its own quaintness. Again, caricature of a European town. Cobble paths, wooden walls, thatch (that's what it is, right?) roofs. Well, maybe more akin to medieval Europe.

I smiled. Maybe he thought that people would go crazy if the entire game was set in some kind of grand fantasy adventure, so he thought that making it much more akin to real life would be better. This is how the rural parts of Japan are, I think. More like this than mountainous anyways. However, that would mean that he was planning this all the way back when he first created the second floor. Was this game always designed as a death trap? Or is that not how game development works? I read a book on this once but for the life of me I can't recall.

Coco pulled on my sleeve, making me follow my eyes down to her. She gestured with her head to the forest. I looked over to Aleph who was still grumbling and then back to her. She shrugged and then gestured to the forest again. I nodded. Our silent conversation carried out, we walked into the forest alone while Aleph was too busy having a pity party.

As we walked, I made sure to look down to see any root that was sticking out of the ground to verify my claims. And just as we walked into the forest, I stepped over another root. Same exact model, but textured to match the lighter color of the trees on this floor. The fact that I was still correct made me do a silent fist pump to myself.

Other than the root, the forest barely looked any different from the ones below. Sunlight peeked in through the leaves above to illuminate the green grass which somehow is nearly perfectly uniform. The light brown trees were thicker than me, though I was slightly sure that I could wrap my arms and touch my hands around the trunks. The addition of bushes every now and then made the forest look both more authentic and natural, along with the occasional squirrel which climbed a tree or dove into a bush the second they saw us. Natural. Virtual Natural.

"How are you doing?" I asked, seeking for some kind of entertainment other than the marvel of each leaf moving in the wind in the bushes, the trees, the blades of grass; not nature, not nature.

"Fine enough. Aleph's a…" she trailed off, pursing her lips. "He's an interesting partner. Keeps things interesting at least."

"That's…" It was my turn to trail off, trying to find an appropriate word that fits. "Fine."

She smirked, a fact that she tried to hide with a slight decline of her head. "Not exactly the word that I would use, but it's good enough. How was your stay at the other forest? Besides being threatened by Netco."

My eyes swiveled around the trees, trying to find any hint of the red haired information broker. Nothing entered my vision, though that didn't mean that he wasn't here. He's been able to follow me without detection for the past weeks, including from those that I've saved. Not that Coco needed to know any of this information necessarily, including the fact that he's probably still here somewhere.

"I was attacked during my stay there; I mentioned it to you before, right?"

She nodded. "Yeah, you have. After saving him from a few wasps, he turned to you and attacked because of your," she coughed, "situation."

I nodded. It wasn't a favorable situation, mostly because it was my first brush with death since I sliced the poor man's (I winced, something that nearly escaped my notice) back. The scariest part was that the man's sword was clearly aimed for my throat, with most of his strikes nearly grazing my esophagus. Not the kind of man that I'd like to fight. Which is exactly why I ran away.

"Well, I guess I'd do the same," she remarked.

"Didn't you trust me in that exact same scenario?" I asked with an eyebrow raised.

"You healed me twice, that's enough of a reason to trust you," she said as she smacked my arm. Her eyes narrowed. "You're making it sound like you regret that."

I stared at her as she stared back. Her face scrunched up in frustration and she hit my arm. Again. I chuckled at her indignation as I patted her head in what I assumed was more of a calming, friendly way rather than a demeaning one. She took it well enough that she didn't hit me a third time, which is a mark up in my book. Instead she huffed and looked away from me into the trees, trying to salvage whatever pride she has left.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding," I chuckled, trying to assuage her worries.

She still didn't look back at me. I stopped my pats and changed the subject. "So how's your partnership with Aleph going? He's behaving himself, right?"

Now she did. A smirk adorned her face and her eyes turned to a fondness that I previously assumed was only present when feeling nostalgia. Maybe she's nostalgic for when she didn't party up?

"He's a character, that's for sure. Best strategy is to run at an unknown enemy, take a lot of hits, then attack once he knows how they fight. He's talking at every other moment when we're not in a fight, curses all the time, and makes me feel awkward since he'll look like I just stepped on his toe whenever I speak up."

I cock my head. "Why is that?"

"Because even though I've spoken multiple times now, he still is surprised when I say something."

Yeah, that definitely sounds like something Aleph would do. I chuckle, which earns me another slap. "Don't laugh, you're the one that got me an idiot who's stuck at my hip."

She has a point. Honestly though, I think that's the best solution to that problem I could've had. On Coco's own she probably wouldn't have sought out other people to party with, since she avoids that kind of thing. Maybe that's fine here, but I was worried for the higher levels when the AI will be smarter and harder. I wasn't sure if soloing was even viable up there in any way, shape, or form. Aleph might've sought out another party, which might've helped his inherent awkwardness since he would've had to talk to other people, but Coco gave him an easy out. Not to mention, the two of them liked each other enough that they now have friends. Two antisocial people got friends! It's a win-win.

Made me a little jealous that they're always together, but what can I do. My 'situation', as Coco calls it, isn't enviable to anyone. The man attacking me at the forest is only the first taste of this. In the coming months of the game, I wasn't sure of how many people I would be attacked by. Just by that thought alone made me want to find a small house and live out the rest of my days (in the game) as a hermit, avoiding any other sort of people so that I wouldn't have my head in danger of being lopped off. I had enough excitement for a while, thank you. On the other hand, people will just continue leveling up more and more. The level of that man was even one above mine (making it odd that he was in that forest, why would he be there?), just further proving that I needed to get stronger if I wanted to defend myself.

I mean, helping people was also-

My head flew forward due to a blow to the back of it. I looked back to see Coco holding an axe in her hand, still raised up into the air. Her face was scrunched up in what I could only guess was annoyance, considering she decided to smack me with an actual weapon. On the bright side, weapons don't do so much damage if you attack without any sword skills, a fact that I found out on the first week with the boars. So no matter how hard you hit, the most you will do is chip damage, even if you slit somebody's throat! Little mercies.

"Don't space out when I'm trying to talk to you," she said.

I chuckled. I wasn't too intimidated by her axe since I was sure that she wouldn't activate a sword skill to attack me just because I'm poking fun at her. At least, I believed so.

"Sorry," I said, patting her head. From her previous reaction, that meant that she liked it, right?

My answer was her weapon glowing brightly. I withdrew my hand as quick as can be, keeping any sort of reaction hidden behind a neutral mask. If I was able to do it with Netco, then I could do it with a girl who was less than half my height.

"Sorry," I repeated without any other gesture.

She nodded and put her weapon down, though I noticed that she didn't entirely dismiss it. Guess I've made it to her bad side. "Anyways, Aleph is definitely strange. Not in a bad way though. He keeps things interesting between the fights with the constant stream of words that flow out of his mouth. He doesn't stop during a fight by the way; he'll try to continue the conversation even if his health is in the red."

That's something that I noticed in the forest also. Maybe not in the middle of battles, but his constant talking makes you want to join in. Otherwise the conversation is drawn wherever his mind goes, which is a mixed bag as far as I'm concerned. It can be annoying, funny, adorable (in his own words, a non-gay way), and any other kind of emotions one can feel since his talking is something akin to a stream of consciousness.

"That does sound like him."

She nodded morosely. "And you made me his babysitter."

A shrug that I hoped conveyed, 'Yeah, and?' was all she got in response. "You're not a very nice man."

This entire time we've been walking the forest hasn't changed a single bit. I began to think that we made a wrong turn due to there being nothing that I'd describe as shelter in the immediate area. Just bushes, trees, leaves, branches, air, grass, clouds, the occasional animal, us, don't forget about us. Nothing much different from the forest below, the one that I first entered. Well, perhaps it is. The old one had much taller trees, this one had it nearly low enough that I could touch the layer of leaves. This one was gloomier because the coverage was much thicker than below. Light leaking in was rare enough that It's noticeable, the entire forest being a little bit darker as a result. Bushes, can't forget about the bushes. The forest below was brighter, I remember entering it and thinking it looked unlike a forest that I've constructed in my mind. Not that I know forests too well, I can't say that I've ever been to one. I remember entering it, right after I met Coco.

Despite talking to me more, I don't know much about the girl. Pretty much nothing besides her personality. I'm not sure what she likes/d to do for fun, what she eats, if this is her first game. I remember first meeting her and thinking that maybe she was a seven year old, though her vocabulary exceeding mine made me second guess that. Wait, I've never asked her that.

"Hey Coco," I asked, causing her to turn to me. "How old are you?"

She slowed her walk down enough that I had to basically shuffle my feet to keep in pace with her. I looked down to her face and was confused to what I saw. The grimace on her face was different from the last one. It was much more, actual perhaps, than the usual frown that she wore when somebody did something stupid. Her eyes followed with it, something that I failed to notice wasn't present in her expression before.

"Why do you want to know?" she asked in a quiet voice.

"Well, with how small you are I first assumed that you were eight or something," I said, before realizing my mistake. I quickly added, "But I know that you're older because of how big of words you use."

My words had no effect on her demeanor. Still she kept her gaze tilted slightly downwards, with the same look on her face. I felt awkward, both with her becoming silent and my confusion towards this silence. As far as I knew there wasn't anything bad about talking about age, though I suppose that it'd make sense if she was insecure about her age. Maybe that's it, she doesn't like her height and age together. That'd make sense if she's actually sixteen and she wants to be taller. That makes sense. Though without her saying outright, I will remain unsure. Which is something that's not going to happen anytime soon since I don't want to ask and I doubt that she'll be forthcoming with the information.

With the silence stretching as far as it did the first week of our meeting, I became anxious for a distraction. It only crosses my mind now that Aleph was still somewhere back in the forest, wherever he's wandered off to, doing his own thing. That'd be a nice distraction, in fact I'd say it would almost be funny. The tension between us is thick, so thick that you can cut through it with a sword… which is exactly what Aleph does. He barges in, sword drawn, and says something silly like, 'I eat pancakes!' and then the tension will be gone! Coco will hit him in the back of the head but will be grateful on the inside while he talks about how painful that hit was despite us not feeling anything.

Aleph didn't charge through the bushes. Where is he?

With the light shafts from the heavens guiding our feet, our my shuffling feet, we move forward like zombies with how we lumber. At least I, because of each step being less than a millimeter because of the sheer size difference between my companion and I. There's no telling where we're going, at this point in the journey I'm sure that she's lost her way too. I miss the concrete of my city, powerlines with shoes tied up in them, or is that in the movies? The antennas raised above our heads while the roofs obscured our views of the clear sky above. I miss the concrete blocking our sky, with the smokestacks in the distance spitting black into the sky. I miss not seeing the sky.

"Fourteen."

I turned to the whisper. With the entirety of my brain power, I resisted the urge to say something stupid along the lines of, 'What did you say?' I smiled and nodded to her.

"Sixteen."

We lapsed back into silence, a more comfortable one with Coco's more slouched back and me not feeling like I traipsed into forbidden territory. No nervous sweating anymore, the two of us were-

"Yo, why the hell did you guys ditch me!"

Coco and I jumped simultaneously, heads whipping around to find the owner of the voice. Both of us jumped again when Aleph jumped straight out of a bush, sword brandished with a huge smile on his face.

Only to get clotheslined by Coco. He fell to the ground, dropping his sword and moaning the entire way down. He put his hands up to his face, obscuring his expression as his body cradled itself back and forth on the grass. A moan followed by a 'Why' was the only sign that he wasn't totally out for the count, enough of his faculties being present that he could formulate entire words.

Coco tugged on my sleeve, gathering my attention. With her axe as a pointer, my gaze followed it to see the sight of a dilapidated cottage… one that was eerily similar to the dilapidated cottages the floor below. In fact, the entire building looked a little too familiar. I wasn't attentive enough to be able to exactly know where every hole and clump of moss was, but the holes in the roof and walls along with chipping brown paint made the house look a little too similar to one that I stayed in before.

Ripping my thoughts away, Coco walked to the front of the house and raised her arms like she was presenting it. "Looks just like home, eh?"

Home. My home had barbells, my computer, my bed. My home smelled like me according to my dad, as I was too used to the smell of the room to notice. My home had two bedrooms and three other rooms; it was small but too big for the two of us. The window faced the rising of the sun so that every morning the sun in my eyes would wake me up since I'm a side sleeper. The light in the kitchen would flicker every now and then even if the lightbulbs were new, something that my dad would always say he'd fix or replace someday. The welcome mat at the front door from our old home. Though my dad was a huge traditionalist for Japanese culture, the house was very modern looking, a courtesy of mom. She was from England, in Japan, an English in Japan because of work. She stayed here for other reasons. My home has my dad, passing conversations that we would have. We didn't sit together to eat. But in my home lived my dad.

"Exactly," I said. Aleph got over his imaginary pain (taking the phrase, 'Pain is only in the mind' to a whole new level) and was slowly lifting himself off his bottom, grumbling the entire way.

The sun has passed its zenith, now marking the past of midday. I walked up to the house and opened the door, which creaked on its hinges. The inside of the house was nothing special; it was one roomed just like every other one. The only defining piece of the room was a fireplace, which had certainly seen better days if the chipping bricks weren't always there (thinking on it, the fireplace wouldn't have seen better days since it was modeled that way) and a dresser lying on its side below a hole. Kayaba, being the generous soul that he is, left a mattress in every one of these houses for any idiots that wanted to sleep outside a safe zone. That idiot of course being me.

"Jesus, it stinks like shit in here," Aleph said behind us, drawing both of our blank gazes. "Err, I mean, it's good enough for you J, right?"

I sighed and walked in. Despite the looks, and smell, of the place, it wasn't half bad. There were a distinct lack of wall holes to keep me hidden from any mob's line of sight, and the hole on the roof will give me a nice view of the stars at night. All in all, it's not the best house I've had since the previous one had a nice view, but it was pretty good.

"Thanks guys," I said, turning around to the two who haven't walked in yet.

Coco nodded while Aleph gave a thumbs up, along with the biggest grin he could muster. "No, thank you! I didn't really want to grind today since the beaters have been hogging all the good grinding spots lately."

Beaters? Coco smacked Aleph's arm again before turning to me. "We're leaving now. be safe."

"You too," I said. She nodded and closed the door, making the last thing that I saw Aleph's huge smirking face.

I sighed and fell back into the mattress, only to get the scare of my life. On top of the hole in the roof was Netco, sharpening his nails with his knife. He caught my gaze and grinned, halting the sharpening.

"Finally we're alone!" he said, jumping down from the hole. He rolled as he hit the ground, and at the end of the roll, caught himself kneeling on one knee, knife held in his teeth and arms stretched out wide.

He grabbed the knife out of his mouth and spoke. "I've got to say J, you just keep surprising me. Being actual friends with green players? So good that you can joke around with them? Setting them up together? You sly dog!"

I blinked as he stood up, continuing his endless stream of tricks with the knife. It was almost mesmerizing to watch how naturally he did it. "Yes, yes. So many surprises that you can catch your friends off guard. I bet that sometimes you'll catch yourself with how unpredictable you can be! Do you plan ahead, or is your mind absolutely barren?"

I opened my mouth only for him to raise a finger. "No no no! Don't speak! Let your actions be the show of your character, not your words!"

I shrugged, making his lips curl into a more genuine smile. At least, that's what I assumed it was. His eyes didn't hold the same malevolence as they normally did.

"Ah, J, J, J. Do you understand how much entertainment you've been providing me, even with your boring routine of grinding? Don't even guess, let me tell you. A lot! You provide me with a lot of entertainment for free and I appreciate that. I appreciate it so much that I'm willing to make a deal," he said, stretching out his hand.

I was hesitant to touch any part of him, so I inched away. "A deal? Like what?"

He held the hand out for a few seconds before retracting it. "So you'd like to know the terms? Hmm, strangely responsible for somebody like you," he grinned. "Just kidding. I acknowledge that ascending and descending the floors would be a pain for somebody in your position. Furthermore, teleport crystals are neither the cheapest or most common item in Aincrad. So, I have a proposition for you, J. I give you an order of teleport crystals in bulk, then you pay me back over time since I already know that you don't have enough money to afford them."

I felt affronted from that comment. Not any of the others, but that one specifically. "I have plenty of money."

He opened his menu and held up the price to me, making my eyes bulge. I didn't even know that many zeroes were even possible in this game. "H-how many crystals am I getting out of this?"

"Five hundred!" he exclaimed, punctuating his sentence with a flip of his knife.

There's no way that I could know the exchange rate for the crystals. There's so many ways that he could be scamming me right now that I didn't even want to think about it. Unfortunately, for my own survival I had to. The price point was indeed above my current amount of money, and there was no way I could pay it off anytime soon. I wasn't sure what Netco wanted out of this, but I really didn't have another choice. He was right that teleporting crystals weren't common. Touchshriek and the traveling salesman in the forest didn't sell them, they just sold the bare necessities. If I wanted to travel between floors, I needed crystals. With five hundred, there wouldn't be any problem.

But then again, he could be scamming me. Mustering up all the balls that I had within me, I spoke. "Give me the crystals first, then I'll pay you all of my money right now."

"My my," he said with a grin. "Little J doesn't want to get scammed, does he? I'll oblige, if only because I like to see my entertainment have some brains on him."

We carried out the transaction, ending it with me accepting a friend request that he sent. Not the smartest move I can make, but I really didn't put it past him to stab me if I pressed no. He climbed back out of the hole on the roof by hopping onto the dresser. He looked down on the dresser with a contemplative look on his face before fixing his gaze on me. He mimed a phone with his hand and shook it next to his ear, mouthing 'I'll keep in touch'. After a jump, he was gone.

I sighed and leaned back on the mattress. Same shitty house, different places.


End file.
